WEBVTT - Why Businesses Fail with Scott Clary 0:00:00.110 --> 0:00:02.779 Natalie, I'm very excited to sit down. We're gonna have 0:00:02.779 --> 0:00:05.750 a lot of fun. I want to start off with this. 0:00:05.750 --> 0:00:11.209 So your thesis is that 97% of businesses fail because 0:00:11.210 --> 0:00:14.030 they don't start the work. Now, I wanted to find 0:00:14.030 --> 0:00:18.140 start the work because most entrepreneurs would think I've started 0:00:18.140 --> 0:00:21.170 my business. I've started the work. This is not the 0:00:21.170 --> 0:00:24.860 work you're talking about. Why do 97% of businesses fail? 0:00:25.100 --> 0:00:29.300 97% of businesses fail because they aren't focused on the 0:00:29.300 --> 0:00:31.910 right things. I believe that if you see a business 0:00:31.910 --> 0:00:34.460 in the e-com space, you see a business in the 0:00:34.460 --> 0:00:37.850 HVAC based space, you see a business in the chiropractic space. 0:00:37.850 --> 0:00:41.510 Whatever business it is that we're talking about, there is 0:00:41.510 --> 0:00:44.720 another business in that same industry that is winning, that 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:47.360 is succeeding, that has figured out how to adapt to 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.000 whatever the market conditions are. Even if you are a printer, 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:52.909 and we know that there is less printing demand today 0:00:52.909 --> 0:00:55.830 than there was 20 years ago, there are still examples 0:00:55.830 --> 0:00:58.680 of somebody being successful in that space. And so the 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.320 question has to become, what did that business owner and 0:01:01.320 --> 0:01:03.930 that team of people spend their time on that is 0:01:03.930 --> 0:01:07.110 different from where you are spending your time? They figured 0:01:07.110 --> 0:01:09.569 out something different. They figured out a better product market fit. 0:01:09.569 --> 0:01:12.539 They figured out how to message their product and service better. 0:01:12.540 --> 0:01:14.760 They figured out what they needed to tweak, and they 0:01:14.760 --> 0:01:18.930 really learned through the process of growing and scaling their business. Now, 0:01:18.930 --> 0:01:24.000 once you have achieved product market fit, my perception and 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:26.069 in working with the business owners that I work with 0:01:26.069 --> 0:01:28.830 is that instead of focusing on the things that they 0:01:28.830 --> 0:01:31.949 like to do, they have to start focusing on the 0:01:31.950 --> 0:01:33.720 things that have to be done in order to scale 0:01:33.720 --> 0:01:37.170 their business, like creating systems and processes and truly putting 0:01:37.170 --> 0:01:40.350 the foundation in place. But until they get product market fit, 0:01:40.350 --> 0:01:43.050 until they're able to figure out who they're selling to, 0:01:43.050 --> 0:01:44.790 how they're talking to that person, all the things that 0:01:44.790 --> 0:01:47.490 you know so much about, they don't need to focus 0:01:47.490 --> 0:01:50.520 on starting the work, which is the book title that 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:53.100 I'm coming out with and how I'm really framing that, 0:01:53.100 --> 0:01:55.650 because the work that they have started is good work. 0:01:55.650 --> 0:01:57.870 It's important work, but they do reach what we call 0:01:57.870 --> 0:02:01.050 a breakpoint. This breakpoint happens around the $3 million in 0:02:01.050 --> 0:02:04.650 revenue mark for the majority of businesses. And when that 0:02:04.650 --> 0:02:08.660 mark happens, when they figured the the way to message 0:02:08.660 --> 0:02:11.840 their their product and service to their clients, and they 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:14.959 have continued to consistently shown that they can do that. 0:02:14.960 --> 0:02:18.290 The work is an entirely different set of challenges, and 0:02:18.290 --> 0:02:20.330 it is an entirely different way of thinking that they 0:02:20.330 --> 0:02:23.420 need to start prioritizing. And what I find is the 0:02:23.419 --> 0:02:26.330 majority of business owners just don't start prioritizing those things. 0:02:26.330 --> 0:02:29.329 They continue to focus on if they like the sales aspect, 0:02:29.330 --> 0:02:31.239 they're going to continue to stay close to the customer 0:02:31.240 --> 0:02:33.460 and figure out how to be a better salesperson. At 0:02:33.460 --> 0:02:35.290 a $3 million business, you do not need to continue 0:02:35.290 --> 0:02:37.180 to focus on being a better salesperson. It is an 0:02:37.180 --> 0:02:39.040 entirely different set of things that you have to start 0:02:39.040 --> 0:02:41.710 doing and force you and your team to put in 0:02:41.710 --> 0:02:44.080 place in order to truly scale that business. 0:02:44.200 --> 0:02:47.350 So I have an interesting story. So I will not 0:02:47.350 --> 0:02:50.050 name the name of the business, but I know a 0:02:50.050 --> 0:02:53.109 business founder. It was a ten year old business and 0:02:53.110 --> 0:02:55.690 the company was doing about $10 million in revenue. Okay. 0:02:56.050 --> 0:02:58.780 And the founder was responsible because he he held all 0:02:58.780 --> 0:03:01.030 the main accounts since day one because he was door 0:03:01.030 --> 0:03:04.090 knocking the closed business when he first started. And he 0:03:04.090 --> 0:03:06.500 was probably responsible for about $4 million of that $10 0:03:06.500 --> 0:03:10.329 million in revenue, which is absolutely wild to think about 0:03:10.330 --> 0:03:14.440 problems with exiting, scaling all of it. Right. So that 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:18.940 break point at 3 million. You mentioned a couple things 0:03:18.940 --> 0:03:21.580 I want to unpack. So it's clear. So you mentioned 0:03:21.580 --> 0:03:24.580 product market fit. You mentioned break point at 3 million. 0:03:24.580 --> 0:03:27.520 You mentioned focus I think focusing on things that are 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:30.489 fun to do but not necessarily scaling. So let's unpack 0:03:30.490 --> 0:03:32.680 maybe some of those concepts first just to provide some 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:35.890 context and framework. So product market fit. How do you 0:03:35.890 --> 0:03:38.350 define product market fit for a business. 0:03:38.350 --> 0:03:42.530 Once a business has determined what their product is and 0:03:42.530 --> 0:03:45.320 that they are able to sell that product consistently through 0:03:45.320 --> 0:03:48.230 a single channel, through whatever their acquisition channel is. And 0:03:48.230 --> 0:03:50.480 they I don't have a metric that I use that 0:03:50.480 --> 0:03:53.990 I'm like, you are the and you understand the marketing 0:03:53.990 --> 0:03:59.150 and the sales, the CAK, the LTV ratio to CAK. Yeah. 0:03:59.300 --> 0:04:05.690 What we're looking for is in a standard businesses, HVAC, chiropractic, 0:04:05.690 --> 0:04:10.160 marketing agencies at 3 million in revenue. If you are 0:04:10.160 --> 0:04:13.610 not the person continuing to sell that product in your business, 0:04:13.610 --> 0:04:16.880 you have figured out how to have a product or 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:19.040 a service. Whatever it is that you're selling, that you're 0:04:19.040 --> 0:04:22.099 able to grow. If you were to add an additional 0:04:22.100 --> 0:04:24.770 channel outside of that first channel, that's what we're looking 0:04:24.770 --> 0:04:27.290 for in the businesses that we're defining as product market 0:04:27.290 --> 0:04:28.940 fit for the SMB space. Okay. 0:04:28.940 --> 0:04:32.310 Cool. So they've they have one revenue stream and they 0:04:32.310 --> 0:04:34.290 have one channel. They're trying to figure out how to diversify, 0:04:34.290 --> 0:04:39.120 but they do have paying customers. Everything's working. They're hitting 0:04:39.120 --> 0:04:41.669 a $3 million. And I actually think this is actually 0:04:41.670 --> 0:04:44.339 interesting because I thought a breakpoint in the business was 0:04:44.970 --> 0:04:47.490 I thought it was 10 million and about 50 employees. 0:04:47.610 --> 0:04:50.010 So there when it starts to get complicated and that's 0:04:50.010 --> 0:04:54.810 when you have to hire, you know, talk about coup 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:57.930 talk with iOS. It's called it integrator. There's all these 0:04:57.930 --> 0:05:01.680 different versions. Right. So what happens at 3 million because 0:05:01.680 --> 0:05:05.070 3 million I'm assuming because a solopreneur could scale to 0:05:05.070 --> 0:05:08.400 1 million. I'm assuming in most cases 3 million. What's 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:10.589 happening in most businesses in SMB space. 0:05:10.589 --> 0:05:11.670 Processes break. 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:13.890 Even at 3 million. 0:05:14.250 --> 0:05:17.730 Well, they can't continue to be the person that's leading 0:05:17.730 --> 0:05:20.730 their business. Yeah, they have to have other people, some 0:05:20.730 --> 0:05:23.339 sort of leadership team. It is not a C-suite. It's 0:05:23.339 --> 0:05:27.240 probably not even a VP suite. They're bringing in directors. 0:05:27.240 --> 0:05:29.250 Think of a state or sales team. You have a 0:05:29.250 --> 0:05:31.440 sales person. That's how you start your business. Most business 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.320 owners might even be the sales person in order to 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:36.690 duplicate themselves in the sales function, so that they can 0:05:36.690 --> 0:05:41.160 actually focus on operations, some HR things, maybe some marketing pieces. 0:05:41.160 --> 0:05:44.489 They have to hire a second sales person that is 0:05:44.490 --> 0:05:46.140 responsible for sales, of course. 0:05:46.140 --> 0:05:48.810 Yeah, but it's difficult because like if the first sales 0:05:48.810 --> 0:05:52.049 person is is the founder and they pass it over 0:05:52.050 --> 0:05:54.690 to one sales person, performance is going to drop immediately 0:05:54.690 --> 0:05:57.630 because they're not as invested in the business as, as 0:05:57.630 --> 0:06:00.360 the founder was. And they're already like, okay, so now 0:06:00.360 --> 0:06:04.529 I'm investing in this person. It even though they're getting 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.110 20 leads a week, they're not converting at 30%, they're 0:06:08.110 --> 0:06:10.930 converting at 10%. And then all of this starts to 0:06:10.930 --> 0:06:13.930 like break down. And the machine doesn't scale because that 0:06:13.930 --> 0:06:16.780 one person they hired, more often than not, they'll be 0:06:16.779 --> 0:06:19.089 benchmarking against their own performance as a founder. And it's 0:06:19.089 --> 0:06:21.460 scary to continue to grow. So then they default back 0:06:21.460 --> 0:06:23.620 to doing the stuff themselves, which is not good, and 0:06:23.620 --> 0:06:25.270 they don't want to lose the relationship with these high 0:06:25.270 --> 0:06:26.530 value accounts and whatnot. 0:06:26.529 --> 0:06:29.409 And then they're back inside the function. They're back as 0:06:29.410 --> 0:06:30.100 the salesperson. 0:06:30.100 --> 0:06:32.559 Okay. So how do you get so that particular breakpoint 0:06:33.040 --> 0:06:35.950 what is what is best practice. Because you work with 0:06:35.950 --> 0:06:37.990 and I want to learn more about like where you 0:06:37.990 --> 0:06:40.270 came from sort of how you built this. Because now 0:06:40.270 --> 0:06:42.940 you have over a billion under management, which is absolutely phenomenal. 0:06:42.940 --> 0:06:46.539 But um, so now you can test stuff at scale, 0:06:46.540 --> 0:06:51.970 which is always fun. But this $3 million breakpoint people 0:06:51.970 --> 0:06:54.520 are selling, founders are selling to hire one sales person. 0:06:55.029 --> 0:06:59.950 It's not working. Very common problem in SMB small business. 0:06:59.980 --> 0:07:01.539 What do you do with that? 0:07:02.470 --> 0:07:03.790 When they know that it's not working? 0:07:03.790 --> 0:07:05.650 When they know when it's not working, when is it 0:07:05.650 --> 0:07:08.140 the people? Is it the processes? What is it that 0:07:08.140 --> 0:07:10.330 takes it to like over that $3 million? 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:13.270 They have to duplicate themselves because they are still the 0:07:13.270 --> 0:07:16.630 ones that are in these functions, because they've hired the person, 0:07:16.630 --> 0:07:18.830 they've hired the sales person, they've hired the head of marketing, 0:07:18.830 --> 0:07:21.950 they have some form of a leadership team in place, 0:07:21.950 --> 0:07:25.310 but they are not actually the ones that know how 0:07:25.310 --> 0:07:28.130 to do what is needed to get done inside these businesses. 0:07:28.130 --> 0:07:30.410 And so what we're looking at at the 3 million 0:07:30.410 --> 0:07:33.350 mark is how does the founder take the skill set 0:07:33.350 --> 0:07:38.120 that they have and truly duplicate through looking at measurements 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:40.850 every single day? What are the metrics inside that business 0:07:40.850 --> 0:07:43.400 to let that founder know? Is this working or is 0:07:43.400 --> 0:07:46.730 this not working? When they have the measurements in place 0:07:46.730 --> 0:07:50.030 and they see what's not working, ideally you're not just 0:07:50.030 --> 0:07:52.970 looking at what's broken and you're trying to fix as 0:07:52.970 --> 0:07:55.970 if you're a firefighter every single day, what's broken. You're 0:07:55.970 --> 0:07:58.489 looking at what has worked as a business owner, what 0:07:58.490 --> 0:08:01.190 worked for you when you were in the sales process, 0:08:01.190 --> 0:08:04.130 what was the documentation, and all of the recorded sales 0:08:04.130 --> 0:08:07.560 calls for you in that function? Same with your marketing. 0:08:07.560 --> 0:08:09.660 If you're not looking at your leads every single day, 0:08:09.660 --> 0:08:12.990 and it's shocking when you work with business owners who 0:08:12.990 --> 0:08:17.700 are in smaller industries and who are more fragmented, they 0:08:17.700 --> 0:08:21.239 don't have access to things like CRM or they don't 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:22.920 think that they do, but they don't perceive that that's 0:08:22.920 --> 0:08:24.690 a problem. They might not even be looking at their 0:08:24.690 --> 0:08:27.420 financials on more than a quarterly basis. And so you're 0:08:27.420 --> 0:08:30.570 really putting this structure into place inside the business to 0:08:30.570 --> 0:08:34.969 let the founder know or the entrepreneur know what's broken today. 0:08:35.360 --> 0:08:39.350 Assembling a team to help solve that problem is their 0:08:39.350 --> 0:08:42.439 next set of challenges, because they now see what's broken. 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.140 But then they're playing firefighter by then being the ones 0:08:45.140 --> 0:08:47.360 that's fixing it. So we find that you have to 0:08:47.360 --> 0:08:50.809 put this foundation in place. What are the financial review 0:08:50.809 --> 0:08:53.870 processes looking like? Are they even looking at their financials 0:08:53.870 --> 0:08:57.630 on a consistent basis and expecting from their outsourced bookkeeper, 0:08:57.630 --> 0:09:01.410 because they probably can't afford to hire someone in-house to 0:09:01.650 --> 0:09:04.590 see when it's happening, to look at the correct numbers, 0:09:04.590 --> 0:09:07.319 to be able to then formulate a plan. If I'm 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:10.230 off on my EBITDA, if I'm off on my revenue, 0:09:10.230 --> 0:09:11.850 then what do I actually have to do in order 0:09:11.850 --> 0:09:13.800 to fix that? But I don't even know if I 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:15.660 have to fix that if I'm not looking at it. 0:09:15.660 --> 0:09:19.199 And so that first breakpoint really is those foundational elements 0:09:19.200 --> 0:09:22.530 through your financial review, your metrics, and the training and 0:09:22.530 --> 0:09:25.890 duplication of the owner into additional team members to allow 0:09:25.890 --> 0:09:28.560 that business to start to go into what would be 0:09:28.559 --> 0:09:31.670 the next breakpoint, which would be from 3 million to 0:09:31.670 --> 0:09:35.460 $8 million in revenue, which then you're looking at looking at, um, 0:09:35.460 --> 0:09:39.420 hiring an additional leadership layer to actually put those correct 0:09:39.420 --> 0:09:42.960 systems and processes in place because they're focused on the 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:44.939 measurements that they've been tracking. 0:09:44.940 --> 0:09:47.460 So, you know that example that I mentioned, I think 0:09:47.460 --> 0:09:50.790 that example was only allowed to exist because the founder 0:09:50.790 --> 0:09:54.030 was so fanatical about closing deals. So he actually grew 0:09:54.030 --> 0:09:57.870 the business larger than probably he should have before implementing 0:09:57.870 --> 0:10:01.620 all of these different SOPs and systems and processes and 0:10:01.620 --> 0:10:03.089 standard operating procedures. 0:10:03.360 --> 0:10:05.640 Um, you couldn't bring somebody in that could do 4,000,000in revenue. 0:10:05.640 --> 0:10:07.849 No. He couldn't. No, of course not. No sales rep 0:10:07.850 --> 0:10:09.980 could ever do that. Uh, if I remember, each sales 0:10:09.980 --> 0:10:13.370 rep was doing just under a million, and he was 0:10:13.370 --> 0:10:17.060 himself closing 4 million. And obviously massive imbalance as to 0:10:17.059 --> 0:10:19.670 who he could hire. Uh, but I also think an 0:10:19.670 --> 0:10:23.450 interesting thing in this space that you deal with, which 0:10:23.450 --> 0:10:26.030 I think is more of an issue with entrepreneurship in general. 0:10:26.030 --> 0:10:30.800 We look at all these VC backed, angel backed Silicon 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:35.470 Valley tech startups. And they build they build their businesses 0:10:35.470 --> 0:10:39.819 not profitably. And they're burning cash, raising the next rounds, 0:10:39.820 --> 0:10:43.839 raising next rounds. And these are like the the entrepreneurial 0:10:43.840 --> 0:10:46.480 influence that a lot of us succumbed to. You just 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:54.850 mentioned HVAC. You mentioned, uh, service based medical, uh, dentist, uh, agency. 0:10:54.910 --> 0:10:58.150 So I think the issue really is that you have 0:10:58.150 --> 0:11:01.960 somebody who built a great HVAC company and they're like, damn, 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:07.120 I'm doing $1 million million five. And like, I can't 0:11:07.120 --> 0:11:11.950 hire a three, a three person inside sales rep and 0:11:11.950 --> 0:11:15.670 accountant and then another two account executives with a million bucks. 0:11:15.670 --> 0:11:18.190 And that's what's screwing people over because they're learning from 0:11:18.190 --> 0:11:21.750 the wrong. They're learning from the wrong people. There's no, 0:11:21.750 --> 0:11:26.910 I don't know, a single HVAC entrepreneur, thought leader on social. 0:11:26.910 --> 0:11:31.199 But I know Jason Calacanis. I know who I know 0:11:31.200 --> 0:11:34.170 all the guys from Y-combinator. I know all those people 0:11:34.170 --> 0:11:37.050 that are super loud on Twitter and create podcasts. And 0:11:37.050 --> 0:11:39.840 then you follow like the people like Adam Neumann who? 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:42.059 Wild story. Right? Those are the people that you look 0:11:42.059 --> 0:11:43.290 to and you're like, okay, how do I learn how 0:11:43.290 --> 0:11:47.990 to build a business like this? But first, I don't 0:11:47.990 --> 0:11:50.479 even believe that many people should build a business based 0:11:50.480 --> 0:11:54.170 on venture money. I believe building profitable businesses from the 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.480 get go is like a superpower, because it sets you 0:11:56.480 --> 0:12:00.650 up to be a successful entrepreneur. Yeah. So what's the 0:12:00.650 --> 0:12:02.960 playbook for somebody who is in a service based or 0:12:02.960 --> 0:12:06.830 even not service based? Uh, who should they be looking to? 0:12:06.860 --> 0:12:10.620 Who should they emulate? Who's done this? Like, very, very well. Repeatedly. 0:12:10.650 --> 0:12:15.990 Who's like a better entrepreneurial. I don't know, influence then 0:12:15.990 --> 0:12:17.790 all the stuff we see on social and YouTube and 0:12:17.790 --> 0:12:19.110 podcasts and all that stuff. 0:12:19.110 --> 0:12:24.120 Because we service all of these different industries or industry agnostic, 0:12:24.120 --> 0:12:26.850 we do have a couple of investments in healthcare. We 0:12:26.850 --> 0:12:30.960 have investments in HVAC, we have investments in roofing and dental. 0:12:31.380 --> 0:12:33.800 We find that in every one of those industries, there 0:12:33.800 --> 0:12:38.300 are micro-influencers who have gone from being the dentist, having 0:12:38.300 --> 0:12:42.589 their hands in somebody's mouth and actually scaling to 15, 25, 0:12:42.590 --> 0:12:46.160 45 dental locations. And they are creating content, but they 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:48.590 are not creating content where they are getting millions of 0:12:48.590 --> 0:12:52.670 views and have all of these subscribers to their YouTube videos. 0:12:52.670 --> 0:12:55.939 It's such a niche audience that they are really talking to. 0:12:55.950 --> 0:12:58.860 And so for every one of these verticals, we do 0:12:58.860 --> 0:13:01.559 find that there are influencers, but they are not at 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.500 the level. And they are so specific to, you know, 0:13:04.500 --> 0:13:07.860 I think of like Tommy Mellow in the garage door space. 0:13:07.860 --> 0:13:09.600 That's also so niche. 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.359 Garage doors. Yeah, yeah. He sold his business for half 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:16.080 $1 billion in the garage door space. Yeah. So there 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:19.800 you have somebody who is now probably going to create 0:13:19.800 --> 0:13:22.740 a larger influence because he has done something that's so spectacular. 0:13:22.740 --> 0:13:25.439 But it started as just a guy figuring out how 0:13:25.440 --> 0:13:28.710 to sell garage doors. And so as people become more 0:13:28.710 --> 0:13:31.830 successful through the markets that, I'm sorry, the industries that 0:13:31.830 --> 0:13:34.679 are hot right now and getting a huge valuation, somebody 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:38.010 like Ken Goodrich in the HVAC space selling Guettel over. 0:13:38.010 --> 0:13:42.000 He sold it now three times for over $250 million. 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.540 They will start to come out and have more social presence, 0:13:45.540 --> 0:13:49.620 and they will be creating individual, industry specific playbooks on 0:13:49.620 --> 0:13:52.800 how to do this. Whether you are a chiropractor or 0:13:52.800 --> 0:13:55.260 a dentist or whatever the vertical that you are in. 0:13:55.260 --> 0:13:57.840 But the principles remain the same, which is why I 0:13:57.840 --> 0:14:00.450 feel very confident in writing a book like Start the 0:14:00.450 --> 0:14:03.030 Work or writing a book like teamwork, where at the 0:14:03.030 --> 0:14:05.550 end of the day, if you're a business owner, taking 0:14:05.550 --> 0:14:07.740 VC money is a little bit different. And we don't 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:11.780 we're we're not pro VC money for the majority of 0:14:11.780 --> 0:14:15.709 businesses because you really shouldn't be accessing that capital unless 0:14:15.710 --> 0:14:19.010 you already know the basics of what it takes to 0:14:19.010 --> 0:14:21.620 run a business. And the majority of business owners are 0:14:21.620 --> 0:14:26.570 not trying to raise VC capital, but they think they 0:14:26.570 --> 0:14:29.150 think that, oh, maybe that's interesting or exciting. They should really, 0:14:29.150 --> 0:14:32.240 like get their teeth knocked in first by creating a 0:14:32.240 --> 0:14:35.030 marketing agency, or hiring their first team, or figuring out 0:14:35.030 --> 0:14:37.820 some of these standard foundational skill sets. How do you 0:14:37.820 --> 0:14:40.970 review a financial set of documents in a business? Do 0:14:40.970 --> 0:14:44.000 you have that core competency before you go ask somebody 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:47.510 for money, much less your friends and your family for money, 0:14:47.510 --> 0:14:50.630 like you should have these very foundational business skills in 0:14:50.630 --> 0:14:53.060 place where you've demonstrated that you were the right person 0:14:53.060 --> 0:14:55.160 for somebody to place money with you and not on 0:14:55.160 --> 0:14:57.730 like a hope and a dream, but on a real 0:14:57.730 --> 0:15:01.150 live example of this is me demonstrating that I actually 0:15:01.150 --> 0:15:03.370 know what I'm talking about, that I'm able to market, 0:15:03.370 --> 0:15:05.230 that I'm able to solve a real problem. And you 0:15:05.230 --> 0:15:08.380 don't get that through not having some sort of experience. 0:15:08.380 --> 0:15:12.640 So the X factor and I agree completely. I mean, 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:14.770 I think too many people raise money. I think that. 0:15:14.770 --> 0:15:15.880 So yeah, if you don't know how to read a 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:18.970 PNL or even create one like that's a big issue. Um, 0:15:19.240 --> 0:15:23.430 so the caveat the the the takeaway is don't raise 0:15:23.430 --> 0:15:27.180 money for most businesses, build it profitably from the get go. Um, 0:15:27.180 --> 0:15:30.120 but the X factor, like you can build SOPs. People 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.600 will understand the concept of building systems and processes around 0:15:33.600 --> 0:15:36.150 what they know. This, even if they're not doing it, 0:15:36.150 --> 0:15:40.560 they can do it tomorrow. The X factor is people. 0:15:40.560 --> 0:15:43.109 The X factor is always people. And I've heard this 0:15:43.110 --> 0:15:47.030 time and time again, especially post-Covid, and even I don't 0:15:47.030 --> 0:15:48.740 know what the rest of the US is like or 0:15:48.740 --> 0:15:50.180 the rest of the world. But I have friends that 0:15:50.180 --> 0:15:53.150 run businesses, and I have not had to hire people 0:15:53.150 --> 0:15:56.900 in the US since Covid ended, so I've been able 0:15:56.900 --> 0:16:00.500 to hire all over the world. pre-COVID was a different story. 0:16:00.500 --> 0:16:03.320 We had people in Canada and the US. Um, but 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.080 post-Covid it's all been it's all been all over. But 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:07.910 I have friends who have tried to hire, and they 0:16:07.910 --> 0:16:11.900 say that the talent landscape post-Covid is very difficult. It's 0:16:11.900 --> 0:16:15.710 very difficult to get great people. And these people are 0:16:15.710 --> 0:16:19.310 not bad business leaders. But it's like the wildest stories, 0:16:19.310 --> 0:16:22.940 like somebody will be hired W2 employee and they'll negotiate 0:16:22.940 --> 0:16:24.500 a salary. And then the first week they'll say, I 0:16:24.500 --> 0:16:28.130 want more money. Like things that didn't happen in my 0:16:28.130 --> 0:16:32.060 life at least. So the X factor is always people, 0:16:32.970 --> 0:16:36.510 The first person like that founder led business, they're making 0:16:36.510 --> 0:16:38.910 money themselves. They try to hire a sales rep. Maybe 0:16:38.910 --> 0:16:42.270 they're not closing as much as the founder does. So 0:16:42.570 --> 0:16:45.810 those first few hires are super important. How do you 0:16:45.810 --> 0:16:48.810 navigate the talent climate? How do you find the right person? 0:16:48.810 --> 0:16:51.180 What is like? What is your framework? Because now you 0:16:51.180 --> 0:16:54.390 have thousands of employees. Um, so you figured it out. 0:16:55.140 --> 0:16:57.210 What is that strategy? 0:16:57.240 --> 0:17:02.610 Yeah. I am a big believer that business is done 0:17:02.610 --> 0:17:05.400 through creating a people game. And you have to think 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:08.850 about yourself as a founder, as an entrepreneur, playing a 0:17:08.850 --> 0:17:12.209 game with finding great people. It's not just, oh, I'm 0:17:12.210 --> 0:17:14.970 gonna find one person and they're going to solve this problem. 0:17:14.970 --> 0:17:18.150 And I'm playing this game of checkers where it's just 0:17:18.150 --> 0:17:20.550 one piece at a time. Oh, I need a marketing person. Oh, 0:17:20.550 --> 0:17:22.060 I need a sales person. Okay, now I'm going to 0:17:22.060 --> 0:17:24.219 go out and recruit. It is a game that you 0:17:24.220 --> 0:17:27.280 have to play for a long period of time to 0:17:27.280 --> 0:17:30.940 help the market understand why you are the founder or 0:17:30.940 --> 0:17:34.510 the entrepreneur, or the business that great people want to 0:17:34.510 --> 0:17:36.699 work with. And so first it starts with, how are 0:17:36.700 --> 0:17:39.220 you promoting that you are a great place to work at? 0:17:39.220 --> 0:17:42.550 Are you talking about in our business card adventures? Are 0:17:42.550 --> 0:17:44.710 you talking about the fact that people are winning inside 0:17:44.710 --> 0:17:47.280 your company? Not just your clients, but your team members? 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:49.290 We have team members who came to work with us, 0:17:49.290 --> 0:17:52.020 who were making $60,000 a year and are now making 0:17:52.020 --> 0:17:55.200 $400,000 a year. We we've only been in business for 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:58.560 five years. We promote those stories, but we're thinking about 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:01.590 that when we make that initial hire of somebody who 0:18:01.590 --> 0:18:05.160 is saying, I'm making $60,000 a year, I'm applying for 0:18:05.160 --> 0:18:09.700 a job here at this compensation. But I have radical goals. 0:18:09.700 --> 0:18:12.609 So how do you find people who have radical goals 0:18:12.609 --> 0:18:14.800 but are at a starting point where the business can 0:18:14.800 --> 0:18:17.439 afford to hire that person? Most businesses cannot afford to 0:18:17.440 --> 0:18:20.650 hire somebody at $400,000. They can't afford to hire somebody 0:18:20.650 --> 0:18:24.160 who is hungry. That's making $60,000, who has the vision 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:26.980 for their life of wanting to make 400,000, but has 0:18:26.980 --> 0:18:29.260 has actually no idea how to get there, because if 0:18:29.260 --> 0:18:30.790 they knew how to get there, they would already be 0:18:30.790 --> 0:18:33.580 making $400,000. We live in a free market economy. If 0:18:33.580 --> 0:18:35.380 somebody could go down the street and make that amount 0:18:35.380 --> 0:18:37.570 of money, they would go and make that amount of money. 0:18:37.570 --> 0:18:39.520 And so as a business owner, if you're playing this 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:43.330 game of people you're really thinking about, I need to 0:18:43.330 --> 0:18:47.680 create a brand for our organization where great talent thinks 0:18:47.680 --> 0:18:50.469 of us as a place where people come to find 0:18:50.500 --> 0:18:53.200 success and to have their success be easier with me 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:55.869 than they would be able to find success with somebody 0:18:55.869 --> 0:18:58.030 down the street. So how are we you promoting that? 0:18:58.030 --> 0:19:02.290 How are you constantly recruiting for people and posting jobs, 0:19:02.290 --> 0:19:04.570 even if you're not hiring for those roles, to tell 0:19:04.570 --> 0:19:07.060 the market that you are recruiting and you're constantly looking 0:19:07.060 --> 0:19:09.790 for great talent, and then once they come in the door, 0:19:09.790 --> 0:19:13.450 how are you exemplifying that you are actually interested in 0:19:13.450 --> 0:19:16.900 their success? I think what's made us successful in this 0:19:16.900 --> 0:19:20.650 hiring market over the last five years, pre-COVID, post Covid, 0:19:20.650 --> 0:19:24.800 is you're getting an opportunity to work alongside real leaders 0:19:24.800 --> 0:19:27.740 in a in a non-virtual work environment. We have an 0:19:27.740 --> 0:19:30.950 office here. We have an office in Scottsdale. They're seeing 0:19:30.950 --> 0:19:34.010 how I work every single day. They're seeing how Brandon 0:19:34.010 --> 0:19:37.280 works every single day. They are like rubbing shoulders with 0:19:37.280 --> 0:19:41.090 us constantly to solve the the largest problems inside our organization. 0:19:41.090 --> 0:19:43.040 And if you take that and you apply it to 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:46.340 a small business, we had the exact same principles five 0:19:46.340 --> 0:19:50.060 years ago as we do today. We create this environment 0:19:50.060 --> 0:19:52.940 that allows people who have this dream, have this hope 0:19:52.940 --> 0:19:55.790 for their lives because we're marketing to them as a 0:19:55.790 --> 0:19:58.790 candidate journey, not just a customer journey as a candidate journey, 0:19:58.790 --> 0:20:01.609 because we're playing this people game, and this candidate journey 0:20:01.609 --> 0:20:03.740 is telling them you can achieve your personal, professional and 0:20:03.740 --> 0:20:07.340 financial goals. Through working here alongside us. We've achieved our personal, 0:20:07.340 --> 0:20:09.650 professional and financial goals up to a point, so there 0:20:09.650 --> 0:20:12.320 is some success that you can follow. But we have 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:15.590 radical goals for this organization and we are committed to growth. 0:20:15.590 --> 0:20:18.830 So once they're in the environment, in order to keep them, 0:20:18.830 --> 0:20:20.929 they have to actually see that we're really doing the 0:20:20.930 --> 0:20:23.810 actions that demonstrate that we're committed to those things. So 0:20:23.810 --> 0:20:26.659 if they saw us on vacation all the time, or 0:20:26.660 --> 0:20:29.510 if they saw us not really being interested in their success, 0:20:29.510 --> 0:20:32.240 if they saw us just like half assing the work 0:20:32.240 --> 0:20:33.899 that we do with our clients, it It would be 0:20:33.900 --> 0:20:36.060 a different story, but instead what they see is a 0:20:36.060 --> 0:20:39.150 team of people and leaders. Back then, when we had 0:20:39.150 --> 0:20:41.159 zero employees all the way up to today, when we 0:20:41.160 --> 0:20:45.270 have hundreds of employees working on the weekends and being 0:20:45.270 --> 0:20:48.030 here before people and being here after people leave, and 0:20:48.030 --> 0:20:50.850 they really are understanding what it takes to be successful. 0:20:50.850 --> 0:20:54.330 So it's the entire package of we sold the dream. 0:20:54.330 --> 0:20:57.150 We're marketing A to a candidates that this dream is 0:20:57.150 --> 0:20:59.490 possible here because we have this target of where this 0:20:59.490 --> 0:21:01.560 business is going in the future, and we're really clear 0:21:01.560 --> 0:21:04.620 about that target. And then once they come in, they 0:21:04.619 --> 0:21:07.169 are testing and watching and seeing how serious we are. 0:21:07.170 --> 0:21:09.810 And so we have to be serious every day. And 0:21:09.810 --> 0:21:11.790 I do find that a lot of business owners really 0:21:11.790 --> 0:21:15.240 struggle with that level of seriousness and that level of commitment, 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:18.300 because they create a business around a lifestyle. And if 0:21:18.300 --> 0:21:20.700 you want a lifestyle business, that's totally fine if that's 0:21:20.700 --> 0:21:23.190 your prerogative, but But you are going to lose a 0:21:23.190 --> 0:21:27.570 people game if somebody else is not actually fulfilling their 0:21:27.570 --> 0:21:29.159 side of the the they're. 0:21:29.160 --> 0:21:30.750 Not they're not being role models for the yeah. 0:21:30.750 --> 0:21:33.209 You're going to lose that person and somebody else is 0:21:33.210 --> 0:21:35.220 going to find the better talent because they actually want 0:21:35.220 --> 0:21:36.960 to be around people who are able to make their 0:21:36.960 --> 0:21:37.919 success easy. 0:21:38.609 --> 0:21:41.580 When you're when you're trying to find that high performer, 0:21:41.700 --> 0:21:45.060 you're talking about all super high performers. I mean, somebody 0:21:45.060 --> 0:21:51.010 who's making 400 grand, obviously highly ambitious births. So how 0:21:51.010 --> 0:21:54.970 do you manage getting them to commit to your business 0:21:54.970 --> 0:21:57.790 while not also getting them to commit to any other 0:21:57.790 --> 0:22:00.100 side hustle, any other thing they're trying to take on? 0:22:00.100 --> 0:22:02.890 Because now everybody is trying to be their own influencer. 0:22:02.890 --> 0:22:06.340 And I mean, I have my own thoughts about. I 0:22:06.340 --> 0:22:08.680 do believe that if you hire people like, I'm super 0:22:08.680 --> 0:22:11.200 happy if they build their personal brand, start something on 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:13.060 the side. I think it helps them upskill. This is 0:22:13.060 --> 0:22:15.370 my personal opinion and there's a lot that goes into that. 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:19.330 But for yourself, I'm curious. You know, when you hire 0:22:19.330 --> 0:22:22.119 somebody like this, there's a very high likelihood that they 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:24.250 are either looking for the next thing, how to make 0:22:24.250 --> 0:22:27.369 more money. When you start making 400 K, you're like 0:22:27.369 --> 0:22:30.400 comfortably poor at that point. So now you realize that 0:22:30.400 --> 0:22:32.770 damn life is good. But I'm also in Miami, so 0:22:32.770 --> 0:22:34.510 how do I make $1 million a year? And maybe 0:22:34.510 --> 0:22:37.030 it's not with an organization, or maybe it is, but 0:22:37.030 --> 0:22:40.960 the person who makes that kind of money, I believe, 0:22:40.960 --> 0:22:44.830 is inherently very an entrepreneurial. I think they are somewhat 0:22:44.830 --> 0:22:48.580 entrepreneurial because they're really striving, and if they put that 0:22:48.580 --> 0:22:50.709 much energy into their own business, there's a chance that 0:22:50.710 --> 0:22:53.740 they could actually succeed as well. So how do you 0:22:53.740 --> 0:22:57.909 manage that personality type? Because everybody wants that person. But 0:22:57.910 --> 0:23:00.080 then at the same time, maybe it's easier if somebody 0:23:00.080 --> 0:23:03.230 is okay. Again, nothing wrong with how much money you make. 0:23:03.230 --> 0:23:05.419 You make six, make 400 K. Make a million. Make 0:23:05.420 --> 0:23:08.600 10 million. Doesn't matter. But if somebody's okay making 60 0:23:08.600 --> 0:23:10.219 K and they're not looking for the next thing and 0:23:10.220 --> 0:23:12.530 they're happy with that, then maybe it's less of a 0:23:12.530 --> 0:23:13.970 liability to the company. 0:23:14.480 --> 0:23:18.050 We start the conversation with our team members around their personal, 0:23:18.050 --> 0:23:21.800 professional and financial goals. That is a process in our business. 0:23:21.800 --> 0:23:24.590 They are sitting down with their leader and saying, this 0:23:24.590 --> 0:23:27.380 is what I want to achieve. So if that person 0:23:27.380 --> 0:23:30.830 is saying, I want to be making $400,000 a year 0:23:30.830 --> 0:23:34.189 over the next three years working here, I want to 0:23:34.190 --> 0:23:36.500 then understand what is five years from now look like. 0:23:36.500 --> 0:23:38.990 Because what I know about being a business owner is 0:23:38.990 --> 0:23:41.750 it sucks most of the time, and you could actually 0:23:41.750 --> 0:23:46.070 live a fantastic life working for somebody else, making more 0:23:46.070 --> 0:23:48.860 money than you would make by yourself. The stats with 0:23:48.859 --> 0:23:51.260 business do not lie. The majority of businesses do not 0:23:51.260 --> 0:23:53.330 make a lot of money. And even if you took 0:23:53.330 --> 0:23:56.330 a high performer inside a business, it does not mean 0:23:56.330 --> 0:23:58.220 that they are going to be a high performance business 0:23:58.220 --> 0:24:00.740 owner and come with all of those challenges and all 0:24:00.740 --> 0:24:03.350 of that risk. And so when we're having these PPF 0:24:03.350 --> 0:24:06.020 conversations with the team member, if they're telling me that 0:24:06.020 --> 0:24:08.330 they want to own a business one day, I really 0:24:08.330 --> 0:24:10.550 have to get down to like, why do you want 0:24:10.550 --> 0:24:12.409 to own a business? Is it because you have to 0:24:12.410 --> 0:24:15.709 be the guy? There's that quality where some people are 0:24:15.710 --> 0:24:17.630 just like, I want to be the guy. I want 0:24:17.630 --> 0:24:20.780 to be the person. Like, okay, that's cool. Part of 0:24:20.780 --> 0:24:23.240 that is a little bit of ego because they have 0:24:23.240 --> 0:24:26.060 no freaking clue what they're talking about. They're making $60,000 0:24:26.060 --> 0:24:28.190 a year. They've never started a business before. They don't 0:24:28.190 --> 0:24:31.400 understand what those components are going to look like. And 0:24:31.400 --> 0:24:34.719 if they do think that they want to be the guy, 0:24:34.720 --> 0:24:36.790 we're probably not going to retain that person, to be 0:24:36.790 --> 0:24:39.250 honest with you, in five years, that hasn't happened for us. 0:24:39.250 --> 0:24:42.070 Our high performers have not left us, especially the ones 0:24:42.070 --> 0:24:44.050 that started early on, the ones that are making it 0:24:44.050 --> 0:24:47.560 with people making 400, 500, 600. The highest paid person 0:24:47.560 --> 0:24:50.020 probably makes $1.2 million a year. And that's a lot. 0:24:50.470 --> 0:24:52.149 That's that's a lot of money as an employee. 0:24:52.150 --> 0:24:54.639 Yeah, it's good money. And going out and starting your business, 0:24:54.640 --> 0:24:56.230 there's a lot of risk for you aren't going to 0:24:56.230 --> 0:25:00.119 be able to replace that income. and all of the 0:25:00.119 --> 0:25:03.570 things that go into entrepreneurship. And so for that person, 0:25:03.570 --> 0:25:08.070 we're asking that they go all in on their goals 0:25:08.070 --> 0:25:10.740 by being really focused on the set of problems that 0:25:10.740 --> 0:25:13.320 we have. If if we have a set of problems 0:25:13.320 --> 0:25:16.290 for somebody who is a high performer making $400,000 a year, 0:25:16.290 --> 0:25:18.510 that is not a 9 to 5 job, and we 0:25:18.510 --> 0:25:19.980 don't expect that they are going to be able to 0:25:19.980 --> 0:25:23.280 solve those problems at that compensation level in a 9 0:25:23.280 --> 0:25:27.780 to 5 environment, because there's just more complexity than you 0:25:27.780 --> 0:25:30.630 clocking in and clocking out. That's not the mindset. So 0:25:30.630 --> 0:25:33.240 when we have that person, though, that doesn't see themselves 0:25:33.240 --> 0:25:37.050 being an employee forever, how do we create the opportunity, 0:25:37.050 --> 0:25:41.040 as Cardone ventures as any small business, to show them 0:25:41.040 --> 0:25:44.130 how they could be a future partner and build inside 0:25:44.130 --> 0:25:47.770 of what we want to create, which is $1 billion organization. 0:25:47.770 --> 0:25:50.740 They can be the president of one of our verticals. 0:25:50.740 --> 0:25:53.379 They could be a president of our health vertical or 0:25:53.380 --> 0:25:56.920 our HVAC vertical, or our roofing vertical or a dental vertical, 0:25:56.920 --> 0:26:00.400 and see themselves growing inside our business because we don't 0:26:00.400 --> 0:26:02.620 want to lose those people. And then they would still 0:26:02.619 --> 0:26:06.010 get the flexibility, the autonomy that they're looking for while 0:26:06.010 --> 0:26:08.110 still getting to do it with really cool people. The 0:26:08.109 --> 0:26:10.449 hardest part of starting a business is actually having to 0:26:10.450 --> 0:26:13.850 do it by yourself. And it sucks and it's painful, 0:26:13.850 --> 0:26:16.310 and most people don't make it through that. So why 0:26:16.310 --> 0:26:19.459 wouldn't you want to continue to work alongside people who 0:26:19.460 --> 0:26:22.310 are always going to be pushing you and expecting more 0:26:22.310 --> 0:26:24.410 of you once you get to that level and partnering 0:26:24.410 --> 0:26:27.080 with you? Because there's more of a cushion there than 0:26:27.080 --> 0:26:28.940 you just going out and starting your own business. And 0:26:28.940 --> 0:26:32.119 this has been successful for us because it's an easy 0:26:32.119 --> 0:26:35.030 story to tell people, and it's also getting them focused 0:26:35.030 --> 0:26:37.990 on what the problems are today. Instead of I'm solving 0:26:37.990 --> 0:26:40.000 these problems in my day job, but now I'm also 0:26:40.000 --> 0:26:42.820 solving these side problems. And now my focus is split 0:26:42.820 --> 0:26:45.040 in two different areas. That person is going to be 0:26:45.040 --> 0:26:47.590 less good at both of those things than the person 0:26:47.590 --> 0:26:50.500 who just does go all in and focuses on the 0:26:50.500 --> 0:26:52.660 one thing in their career. Yes, they're choosing to take 0:26:52.660 --> 0:26:55.810 a gamble on the organization, but if we continue to 0:26:55.810 --> 0:26:58.840 demonstrate that we're here, that we're pushing, that we're growing, 0:26:58.840 --> 0:27:01.389 then that confidence and that trust continues to build. 0:27:01.540 --> 0:27:06.070 So the concept of of giving ownership to somebody, not 0:27:06.070 --> 0:27:08.320 just in their job, but like true ownership over a 0:27:08.320 --> 0:27:12.669 vertical or equity, I think that's such an underutilized tool, 0:27:12.670 --> 0:27:17.439 but it's underutilized for a reason, is because founders and 0:27:17.650 --> 0:27:20.290 and entrepreneurs are very scared about giving up a piece 0:27:20.290 --> 0:27:23.550 of what they've built. Um, and they don't want to 0:27:23.550 --> 0:27:25.830 do it incorrectly. They don't want to give ownership to 0:27:25.830 --> 0:27:28.169 the wrong person. And I don't know if, for example, 0:27:28.170 --> 0:27:30.659 if somebody in Cardone ventures that they took over as 0:27:30.660 --> 0:27:33.570 president of an HVAC division, if they would be able 0:27:33.570 --> 0:27:36.629 to buy in and have equity in that, I'm assuming, yes, 0:27:36.630 --> 0:27:39.450 at some level, if they're if they've, you know, shown 0:27:39.450 --> 0:27:42.060 that they can they can exceed and grow it and 0:27:42.060 --> 0:27:44.940 build it. So I think that okay, so we talked 0:27:44.940 --> 0:27:50.000 about building SOPs, uh, finding the right people, but then 0:27:50.450 --> 0:27:53.780 scaling out the management team, scaling out the people that 0:27:53.780 --> 0:27:57.889 are entrepreneurial but within your own organization. Maybe ownership is 0:27:57.890 --> 0:28:00.109 a key piece of that. So how do you take 0:28:00.109 --> 0:28:02.629 it from let's tie this back into the book and 0:28:02.630 --> 0:28:04.800 the framework and the the 3 million to the $8 0:28:04.800 --> 0:28:07.940 million break point, $8 million break point. You have to 0:28:07.940 --> 0:28:10.310 start bringing in another level of management that could be 0:28:10.310 --> 0:28:13.160 people that are be a super entrepreneurial, but they're taking 0:28:13.160 --> 0:28:15.020 a risk on your business. They're committing their time to 0:28:15.020 --> 0:28:18.530 your business. What is the playbook for finding the right 0:28:18.530 --> 0:28:20.990 person that you can give ownership to, that you can 0:28:20.990 --> 0:28:26.210 trust with that level of management and level of responsibility 0:28:26.210 --> 0:28:29.480 to get over that $8 million break point. 0:28:29.869 --> 0:28:34.340 You're really marketing to this person through every touchpoint that 0:28:34.340 --> 0:28:38.430 your brand creates online. And my job at our organization 0:28:38.430 --> 0:28:40.650 is to be talking to that person, which is different 0:28:40.650 --> 0:28:43.890 than talking to our clients, because I recognize that we 0:28:43.890 --> 0:28:46.979 are not going to win this organization game if we 0:28:46.980 --> 0:28:49.440 cannot figure out how to find great people. So I'm 0:28:49.440 --> 0:28:52.140 marketing to the type of person that wants to leave 0:28:52.140 --> 0:28:55.200 a job. We just hired our CFO slash COO, who 0:28:55.200 --> 0:28:58.320 left KKR, and it was the head of treasury in 0:28:58.320 --> 0:29:02.310 order to inside our business. He's totally badass. He literally 0:29:02.310 --> 0:29:06.030 moved from New York to join this like small little 0:29:06.060 --> 0:29:11.160 $125 million company to be a part of what we're building. 0:29:11.160 --> 0:29:14.880 But that same thing that we are doing today to 0:29:14.880 --> 0:29:18.720 attract talent from KKR is how we started the business 0:29:19.110 --> 0:29:22.170 five years ago. It's talking about the fact that we 0:29:22.170 --> 0:29:24.690 are going someplace and having a big vision. And to me, 0:29:24.690 --> 0:29:26.940 this is where most business owners just fail. They do 0:29:26.940 --> 0:29:29.820 not actually have clarity on what their ten year vision is. 0:29:29.820 --> 0:29:31.950 You and I were talking about your ten year targets 0:29:31.950 --> 0:29:34.140 and your ten year goals, and committing to something for 0:29:34.140 --> 0:29:37.469 ten years. If you really had that mindset with your business, 0:29:37.470 --> 0:29:40.050 you should be sharing with every single person that you 0:29:40.050 --> 0:29:42.990 come in contact with, what that big vision is. And 0:29:42.990 --> 0:29:44.850 if you don't have that big vision and you're not 0:29:44.850 --> 0:29:47.790 talking about those things, of course you're going to get disengaged. People, 0:29:47.800 --> 0:29:50.830 people who are not interested in even having a conversation 0:29:50.830 --> 0:29:53.740 about equity because they just looked at your position as 0:29:53.740 --> 0:29:56.500 a job and your mindset because you're not playing a 0:29:56.500 --> 0:30:00.010 people game is I'm just filling holes inside this organization 0:30:00.010 --> 0:30:02.920 instead of really strategically looking at this as, how do 0:30:02.920 --> 0:30:05.230 I find people who want to come on board to 0:30:05.230 --> 0:30:07.900 have a piece of this business to help grow this business. 0:30:07.900 --> 0:30:10.900 So every single thing that you do when it comes 0:30:10.900 --> 0:30:13.390 to how you show up with your team every single day, 0:30:13.390 --> 0:30:16.630 how you interview the candidate, what you're asking them to, 0:30:16.660 --> 0:30:19.540 to demonstrate to you in the interview process, are you 0:30:19.540 --> 0:30:21.550 asking them what their goals are? That, to me is 0:30:21.550 --> 0:30:23.440 the lowest hanging fruit for a business owner. If you 0:30:23.440 --> 0:30:25.930 are not asking somebody what their goals are prior to 0:30:25.930 --> 0:30:30.370 them joining you, it's akin to somebody getting married, falling 0:30:30.370 --> 0:30:32.950 in love, deciding to get married in a very short notice. 0:30:32.950 --> 0:30:36.380 And then once you're on your honeymoon, you're having this conversation. 0:30:36.380 --> 0:30:37.910 You guys are blissfully in love, but you're having this 0:30:37.910 --> 0:30:41.810 conversation about the significant other saying, oh, I can't wait 0:30:41.810 --> 0:30:43.910 for us to move into the country and for us 0:30:43.910 --> 0:30:46.700 to be able to have farmland and get out of 0:30:46.700 --> 0:30:48.380 the city. I hate the city, and we can have 0:30:48.380 --> 0:30:50.420 all of these kids. And you're like, wait a second, 0:30:50.420 --> 0:30:52.670 I love the city. I always want to be in 0:30:52.670 --> 0:30:54.230 the city. I didn't think we were going to have 0:30:54.230 --> 0:30:55.640 kids together. I thought it was just going to be 0:30:55.640 --> 0:30:56.870 you and me till the end, and we were going 0:30:56.870 --> 0:31:00.140 to build this empire. There was no coordination on the 0:31:00.150 --> 0:31:02.640 goals for those groups of people. We do this to 0:31:02.640 --> 0:31:05.580 our team members all the time. Were secretly as business 0:31:05.580 --> 0:31:09.060 owners wanting to create these large organizations. We have these dreams. 0:31:09.060 --> 0:31:12.600 We don't communicate them. We post a position assuming that 0:31:12.600 --> 0:31:15.180 we're going to get the best talent, the most engaged talent, 0:31:15.180 --> 0:31:17.370 somebody who's finally going to help me in my business. 0:31:17.370 --> 0:31:19.800 All of a sudden they come on board. We didn't 0:31:19.800 --> 0:31:22.320 ask them what their goals were. They're expecting to clock 0:31:22.320 --> 0:31:25.430 in and clock out or they have other priorities that 0:31:25.430 --> 0:31:27.800 we didn't even ask them about ahead of time. And 0:31:27.800 --> 0:31:30.080 yet we're expecting them to help take our business from 0:31:30.080 --> 0:31:33.050 $3 million to $8 million. We didn't we didn't even 0:31:33.050 --> 0:31:35.750 contextually put that person into the role of what does 0:31:35.750 --> 0:31:37.490 it take to go from 3 million to 8 million? 0:31:37.490 --> 0:31:39.860 Do you know what it's like to work an $8 0:31:39.860 --> 0:31:42.380 million business when you joined your last company that I'm 0:31:42.380 --> 0:31:45.180 so impressed with as an entrepreneur that was doing $50 0:31:45.180 --> 0:31:48.020 million in revenue, were were you there only when they 0:31:48.020 --> 0:31:50.030 were doing 50 million, or were you there when they 0:31:50.030 --> 0:31:52.250 actually grew from 25 to 50, so that you have 0:31:52.250 --> 0:31:54.740 context to be able to help us not just go 0:31:54.740 --> 0:31:57.620 to 8 million, but actually hit a $50 million target. 0:31:57.620 --> 0:32:00.650 And so in this conversation with the candidate, you have 0:32:00.650 --> 0:32:04.700 to be framing what the goal is for the organization. 0:32:04.700 --> 0:32:07.340 And then once they're on board with you, your your 0:32:07.340 --> 0:32:11.240 crystal clear on what the expectation is. Are they hitting metrics? 0:32:11.240 --> 0:32:13.260 Are they clear on what their job description is? Do 0:32:13.260 --> 0:32:15.720 they know what success looks like in the first 30, 60, 0:32:15.720 --> 0:32:18.990 90 days? And at that point, for us at least, 0:32:18.990 --> 0:32:22.050 that's when we start issuing equity, because I'm not going 0:32:22.050 --> 0:32:23.700 to give equity to somebody on a hope and a 0:32:23.700 --> 0:32:26.040 dream and a promise. But a lot of higher level 0:32:26.040 --> 0:32:29.850 executives are wanting that promise when they start an organization. 0:32:29.850 --> 0:32:32.430 And because we've tried doing that a handful of times, 0:32:32.430 --> 0:32:34.590 I'm at the place today where it hasn't worked. We'll 0:32:34.590 --> 0:32:36.630 not do that because they come in with these big 0:32:36.630 --> 0:32:40.080 degrees or they come in with this, this 14 years 0:32:40.080 --> 0:32:41.820 at Ernst and Young, and they are about to be 0:32:41.820 --> 0:32:44.850 a partner. And then they come in and they expect 0:32:44.850 --> 0:32:47.790 that our environment is a cushy one. And so it 0:32:47.790 --> 0:32:50.520 really depends on what the business owner is trying to create. 0:32:50.520 --> 0:32:52.710 But if you are really serious about your goals and 0:32:52.710 --> 0:32:54.840 you are really clear on where you're trying to go, 0:32:54.840 --> 0:32:57.450 you have to be communicating that with the person the 0:32:57.450 --> 0:33:01.030 entire time. You almost have to promote that more than 0:33:01.030 --> 0:33:05.350 you're promoting your client journey, more than you're promoting you 0:33:05.350 --> 0:33:09.250 bringing on new business. Because at some point, that is 0:33:09.250 --> 0:33:11.590 not the thing that's going to stop you from growing 0:33:11.590 --> 0:33:13.810 your business. It's going to be this people piece. And 0:33:13.810 --> 0:33:16.420 if you're not focused on this people piece, when you start, 0:33:16.420 --> 0:33:20.739 you're just playing this whac-a-mole game and filling positions and 0:33:20.740 --> 0:33:24.190 filling roles, and you have this duct tape together team 0:33:24.190 --> 0:33:27.030 Once you've got all of this, all of these clients 0:33:27.030 --> 0:33:29.550 that are inside your business and the business isn't set 0:33:29.550 --> 0:33:30.780 up to actually scale. 0:33:31.470 --> 0:33:37.860 I'm super curious because so your husband Brandon and yourself, 0:33:37.860 --> 0:33:42.600 you had $151 million exit, which is phenomenal, right? So obviously, 0:33:42.600 --> 0:33:44.340 like first of all, you just said you brought some 0:33:44.340 --> 0:33:46.320 from KKR, which is like I think at this point, 0:33:46.320 --> 0:33:47.940 the second or third largest private equity firm in the 0:33:47.940 --> 0:33:51.170 world still phenomenal. You're still doing it. But when you 0:33:51.170 --> 0:33:55.340 when you started working with Grant, I want to unpack 0:33:55.340 --> 0:34:00.290 even your experience because what he built out and how 0:34:00.290 --> 0:34:03.080 he partnered with both of you. So Brandon and yourself 0:34:03.080 --> 0:34:08.000 to build a Cardone Ventures, this is kind of it's 0:34:08.000 --> 0:34:11.360 an example of exactly what you're telling businesses to do. So, 0:34:11.360 --> 0:34:13.700 I mean, not a lot of businesses can attract somebody 0:34:13.700 --> 0:34:18.530 who had $151 million exit to come and partner up 0:34:18.530 --> 0:34:21.650 with them for sure. So, you know, obviously, I think 0:34:21.650 --> 0:34:23.210 it's good just to get a little bit of your 0:34:23.210 --> 0:34:25.670 backstory and where you came from, but then tee it 0:34:25.670 --> 0:34:29.239 up with how did this partnership happen? Because this is 0:34:29.239 --> 0:34:32.420 what at as a business owner, if I can attract 0:34:32.420 --> 0:34:35.930 somebody who had that level of exit nine figure exit, like, 0:34:35.930 --> 0:34:38.510 that's phenomenal. Like I could only dream like, right. That's 0:34:38.510 --> 0:34:42.080 what I mean. I'm trying to attract people from from Fang, 0:34:42.080 --> 0:34:45.169 from Facebook, from Apple, let alone like an exited entrepreneur. 0:34:46.070 --> 0:34:50.840 It was a very serendipitous event in our lives. And 0:34:50.840 --> 0:34:53.390 I honestly think that this is the greatest gift of 0:34:53.390 --> 0:34:56.330 my life up until this point, which was I watched 0:34:56.330 --> 0:35:00.200 my now husband build this business as an entrepreneur. He 0:35:00.200 --> 0:35:02.660 founded it in 2004. I worked in the business the 0:35:02.660 --> 0:35:05.060 last handful of years while he was going through the 0:35:05.060 --> 0:35:08.930 road show and the exit of this organization. So the 0:35:08.930 --> 0:35:12.980 wire hits the bank account. We were in Spain, and 0:35:12.980 --> 0:35:17.600 within moments of that wire hitting, I just watched the 0:35:17.600 --> 0:35:22.609 anxiety flood through him. Because you have this thing that 0:35:22.610 --> 0:35:25.940 happens that you've always dreamed of. But if you don't 0:35:25.940 --> 0:35:29.299 have people around you telling you what's next or helping 0:35:29.300 --> 0:35:32.989 you prepare for what that experience is like, you feel 0:35:32.989 --> 0:35:35.990 like your purpose is gone. And this is exactly what happened. 0:35:36.110 --> 0:35:39.259 His purpose was gone. And for two years we went 0:35:39.260 --> 0:35:43.219 around hanging out with everybody who had done a similar thing. 0:35:43.219 --> 0:35:45.560 They had exits. What do people do when they sell 0:35:45.560 --> 0:35:49.490 their business? They start investing in golf memberships. They start 0:35:49.489 --> 0:35:53.750 traveling more. They buy homes. They might buy some stupid stuff. 0:35:53.750 --> 0:35:56.600 My husband happened to have a car, uh, a car, 0:35:56.600 --> 0:35:58.220 a little addiction there for a while. I think he 0:35:58.219 --> 0:36:00.590 bought like six cars in a matter of two months. 0:36:00.620 --> 0:36:02.180 It was ridiculous. That's a lot. It was a lot 0:36:02.180 --> 0:36:05.330 of cars. He likes cars. He still likes cars. But 0:36:05.330 --> 0:36:09.170 there was no influence around us saying, this is what's next. 0:36:09.170 --> 0:36:12.410 And so at the time, I was 23 years old. 0:36:12.410 --> 0:36:15.160 He was 48 years old. We have a little bit 0:36:15.160 --> 0:36:17.080 of an age difference. And I was like, this is 0:36:17.080 --> 0:36:18.700 not what I signed up for. I signed up for 0:36:18.700 --> 0:36:20.500 us to build a business. I signed up for us 0:36:20.500 --> 0:36:22.509 to have a purpose and a mission, and I'm not 0:36:22.510 --> 0:36:24.850 cool with us talking to your golf buddies every single 0:36:24.850 --> 0:36:28.180 day about the one shot that we missed every day 0:36:28.180 --> 0:36:30.610 was like the same conversation. The one shot us with golfers. 0:36:30.640 --> 0:36:33.190 The one shot that, like, took the whole game out. Like, 0:36:33.190 --> 0:36:35.410 I can't do this. And so I started looking at 0:36:35.410 --> 0:36:38.160 all of these social media influencers because my husband is 0:36:38.160 --> 0:36:42.000 brilliant and he's engaging and dynamic and funny and he's sharp. 0:36:42.000 --> 0:36:43.320 And I was like, if these guys can do it, 0:36:43.320 --> 0:36:45.450 you can frickin do it. You've done more from a 0:36:45.450 --> 0:36:47.700 competency standpoint than most of them have and have this 0:36:47.700 --> 0:36:49.710 incredible story. So I start looking at all these social 0:36:49.710 --> 0:36:52.980 media people, and I showed Grant to him, and the 0:36:52.980 --> 0:36:55.770 first time he saw Grant, he was like, this has 0:36:55.770 --> 0:36:57.509 to be a joke. Like my husband was a very 0:36:57.510 --> 0:37:00.960 like traditional businessperson. He was thinking that our next iteration 0:37:00.960 --> 0:37:03.120 was going to be going through private equity, and I 0:37:03.120 --> 0:37:04.710 was like, what if we went the social media route? 0:37:04.710 --> 0:37:07.259 So I found this list, showed him Grant. He was 0:37:07.260 --> 0:37:11.189 not interested. I instantly was like, this is the guy. 0:37:11.190 --> 0:37:14.370 I just could tell through the content. But more importantly, 0:37:14.730 --> 0:37:17.400 his relationship with his wife and his relationship with his kids. 0:37:17.400 --> 0:37:20.400 Not only was he creating this financial success and have 0:37:20.400 --> 0:37:22.800 this big mission to help all 8 billion people on 0:37:22.800 --> 0:37:26.190 the planet with financial literacy, like the mission is insane. Grant, 0:37:26.190 --> 0:37:28.469 like when he talks about ten X, that push that 0:37:28.469 --> 0:37:31.800 he has is very real because he has this big mission. 0:37:31.800 --> 0:37:35.190 But it's not just about the cars and the planes 0:37:35.190 --> 0:37:37.740 and the watches and all this success, which is what 0:37:37.739 --> 0:37:40.650 I was seeing so much of it, the golf course, 0:37:40.650 --> 0:37:43.380 it was for him, more about how do I create 0:37:43.380 --> 0:37:46.320 this life and this legacy for other people and also 0:37:46.320 --> 0:37:49.500 have an incredible relationship with my wife and also be 0:37:49.500 --> 0:37:52.450 a phenomenal dad. And so I was very interested and 0:37:52.450 --> 0:37:55.180 attracted to this life, this ten-x thing that they were 0:37:55.180 --> 0:37:58.509 promoting online. And so I read every single book. I 0:37:58.510 --> 0:38:01.270 practically watched every single YouTube video and put this in 0:38:01.270 --> 0:38:03.370 front of Brandon when we were going on a four 0:38:03.370 --> 0:38:05.530 hour car ride. I put the ten x rule on 0:38:05.530 --> 0:38:07.839 after I had read it like two times at that point, 0:38:07.840 --> 0:38:09.820 and at first he's like, no, no, no, we're not 0:38:09.820 --> 0:38:12.070 listening to this. Luckily, he has no idea how to 0:38:12.070 --> 0:38:14.739 work Bluetooth. The age difference seems to be with this. 0:38:14.739 --> 0:38:16.810 So I forced him to. He couldn't. He couldn't turn 0:38:16.810 --> 0:38:18.400 it off. We were in the car for four hours 0:38:18.400 --> 0:38:21.040 and it clicked for him too. So when we met 0:38:21.040 --> 0:38:24.790 Grant and Elena, it was really us validating. Are they 0:38:24.820 --> 0:38:27.340 who they say they are and is their audience somebody 0:38:27.340 --> 0:38:29.290 that we know that we could help? They at the 0:38:29.290 --> 0:38:33.009 time had Cardinal Capital, which is an investment firm for 0:38:33.010 --> 0:38:36.219 multifamily real estate, and they had Cardinal University, which is 0:38:36.219 --> 0:38:39.130 sales training. But what we know how to do is 0:38:39.130 --> 0:38:42.970 leadership development and hiring and operations and how to look 0:38:42.969 --> 0:38:45.880 at financials and all of these other components of growing 0:38:45.880 --> 0:38:49.690 and scaling a business. So we met this audience at 0:38:49.690 --> 0:38:53.170 Growth Con in 2019, this big event, 35,000 people in it. 0:38:53.590 --> 0:38:55.270 We met this audience. We're like, yeah, we know we 0:38:55.270 --> 0:38:58.120 can help these people because they're only getting serviced through 0:38:58.120 --> 0:39:02.020 these two channels that Grant currently is offering. And we 0:39:02.020 --> 0:39:04.790 watched Grant and Alena like weird little stalkers. Like we 0:39:04.790 --> 0:39:07.969 just like watched every little lube. And when we finally 0:39:07.969 --> 0:39:10.700 got the opportunity to meet them, we said, what would 0:39:10.700 --> 0:39:13.730 it take for us to have a conversation around being 0:39:13.730 --> 0:39:17.720 partners and creating $1 billion organization together, servicing business owners? 0:39:17.719 --> 0:39:19.430 And grant like kind of blew us off a little 0:39:19.430 --> 0:39:21.470 bit at first. But, you know, we know how to 0:39:21.469 --> 0:39:24.320 follow up and we continue to follow up. And when 0:39:24.320 --> 0:39:28.710 that conversation became real, it was so obvious that this 0:39:28.710 --> 0:39:31.560 is a need in their organization. And this is what 0:39:31.560 --> 0:39:34.620 we are good at doing. And we had been able 0:39:34.620 --> 0:39:36.960 to create this track record. And so for the last 0:39:36.960 --> 0:39:40.680 five years, that's what we've been busy building. But for me, 0:39:40.680 --> 0:39:42.239 maybe you and I might have a little bit of 0:39:42.239 --> 0:39:44.520 a different philosophy on this, actually. And I would love 0:39:44.520 --> 0:39:47.580 to like, debate this potentially. Like, I think it's really 0:39:47.580 --> 0:39:52.220 hard when you're, like, picking and choosing pieces of mentors, 0:39:52.219 --> 0:39:56.180 because I don't want to be watching somebody who has 0:39:56.180 --> 0:39:58.609 all this business success and is telling me what it 0:39:58.610 --> 0:40:01.220 takes to do to to be great in business, but 0:40:01.250 --> 0:40:02.930 is a shitty dad. Like, I don't want to be 0:40:02.930 --> 0:40:05.330 listening to that person, and I have a hard time 0:40:05.330 --> 0:40:08.930 bifurcating that. It's one person. Interesting because to me, they're 0:40:08.960 --> 0:40:11.540 they are one person, and I want to learn from 0:40:11.540 --> 0:40:13.880 people who really do have it all. If there is 0:40:13.890 --> 0:40:16.920 somebody who has exactly what I'm looking for, I want 0:40:16.920 --> 0:40:19.140 to listen to that person. And I used to listen 0:40:19.140 --> 0:40:21.569 to all of these different podcasts and YouTube, like, I'm 0:40:21.570 --> 0:40:24.390 a student of this, this content. I used to listen 0:40:24.390 --> 0:40:26.850 to couples who did business separately, and then all of 0:40:26.850 --> 0:40:28.770 a sudden I was like, picking fights with Brandon or 0:40:28.770 --> 0:40:31.259 having issues in our business because I was listening to 0:40:31.260 --> 0:40:33.000 content that even though maybe I was listening to them 0:40:33.000 --> 0:40:36.569 about marriage content, it infiltrated the fact that they weren't 0:40:36.570 --> 0:40:39.810 working together. And that wasn't my path. My path was 0:40:39.810 --> 0:40:42.600 working alongside my husband in a business and having to 0:40:42.600 --> 0:40:46.710 figure out this this way forward, while also being a 0:40:46.710 --> 0:40:50.100 business owner, a wife, being supportive in all of these roles. 0:40:50.100 --> 0:40:52.380 And it was confusing to me what I was trying 0:40:52.380 --> 0:40:55.890 to just like, study one part of somebody. And so 0:40:55.890 --> 0:41:02.490 for us, Grant and Elena really were that like family, husband, wife, kids, 0:41:02.489 --> 0:41:07.560 ridiculously successful from a financial standpoint and impact driven. And 0:41:07.560 --> 0:41:09.750 what I found them to be, I'm like, I'm going 0:41:09.750 --> 0:41:14.520 all in. And five years later I am more putting 0:41:14.520 --> 0:41:17.790 them on a pedestal today than I was back then. 0:41:17.790 --> 0:41:21.990 And that is so rare in today's world where you 0:41:21.989 --> 0:41:23.850 put somebody on a pedestal because you think that they're 0:41:23.880 --> 0:41:27.600 this great person from everything you've watched on social media, YouTube, Instagram, 0:41:27.600 --> 0:41:30.180 all of the fun stuff. You're like, oh, they're this person. 0:41:30.180 --> 0:41:32.400 But then you meet them oftentimes and you have a 0:41:32.400 --> 0:41:34.320 lot of experience with this. You meet them and and. 0:41:34.320 --> 0:41:35.069 Don't meet your heroes. 0:41:35.070 --> 0:41:37.440 Right? They're not. Yeah. You like that's a real advice. 0:41:37.440 --> 0:41:40.650 Don't meet your heroes. To me. I respect them more 0:41:40.650 --> 0:41:44.670 after spending thousands of hours with them than today, than 0:41:44.670 --> 0:41:47.279 I did back then, because they actually are who they 0:41:47.280 --> 0:41:49.080 say that they are. And to me, they're better. Like, 0:41:49.080 --> 0:41:51.700 I wish somebody I wish they were better promoters of 0:41:51.730 --> 0:41:53.800 who they are, because I think so much gets missed 0:41:53.800 --> 0:41:55.660 with the two of them. And so that's why we 0:41:55.660 --> 0:41:58.720 decided to literally go all in. We moved from Washington, 0:41:58.719 --> 0:42:01.510 move between here in Scottsdale to build this business over 0:42:01.510 --> 0:42:04.420 five years because we found people that had the life 0:42:04.420 --> 0:42:06.399 that we wanted who were willing to mentor us, and 0:42:06.400 --> 0:42:10.270 we also brought a significant amount of credibility and influence 0:42:10.270 --> 0:42:13.420 and hard work and strategy to the table to make 0:42:13.420 --> 0:42:14.710 this partnership make sense. 0:42:15.160 --> 0:42:18.219 So it's interesting that you that you, you say that 0:42:18.219 --> 0:42:21.160 you found this one person that sort of encapsulates everything. 0:42:21.160 --> 0:42:26.080 It's very hard to compartmentalize one particular aspect of somebody's 0:42:26.080 --> 0:42:27.760 life and then ignore the rest. And I think that's 0:42:27.760 --> 0:42:31.420 actually very wise. I think that the reason I have 0:42:31.420 --> 0:42:35.380 the view that I have is because it's very rare 0:42:35.380 --> 0:42:39.520 to find somebody that encapsulates everything that you would look 0:42:39.520 --> 0:42:42.549 for in a person, and I think it's because people 0:42:42.550 --> 0:42:46.900 are so easily influenced by social media. I think it's dangerous. 0:42:46.900 --> 0:42:51.160 I think it's less risky to look at a few 0:42:51.160 --> 0:42:54.010 different people than to go all in on one person, 0:42:54.010 --> 0:42:56.290 because if I say go all in on one person, 0:42:57.310 --> 0:43:01.420 there's a there's a high probability that person is not 0:43:01.420 --> 0:43:04.670 who they say they are. That's the concern. And I 0:43:04.670 --> 0:43:07.460 think that we talk about access all the time. And 0:43:07.460 --> 0:43:10.790 I'm going to give you an impossible question to answer, 0:43:10.790 --> 0:43:14.689 because you asked me some impossible questions as well. But 0:43:15.050 --> 0:43:20.719 when you look at the exit and the access that 0:43:20.719 --> 0:43:24.230 you had, someone will be like, okay, so I didn't 0:43:24.230 --> 0:43:27.800 have $151 million exit. How can I have a sit 0:43:27.800 --> 0:43:30.350 down conversation with all the people that I look up 0:43:30.350 --> 0:43:32.480 to to make sure that they are who they say 0:43:32.480 --> 0:43:33.830 they are? Because I do want to go all in 0:43:33.830 --> 0:43:37.070 on one person. That's a very difficult thing to replicate. 0:43:37.070 --> 0:43:39.860 So what would be the advice for somebody who's looking 0:43:39.860 --> 0:43:44.300 for mentor advice? All the people online, if. 0:43:44.300 --> 0:43:47.540 You can't meet them in person and spend one on 0:43:47.540 --> 0:43:51.710 one time with them, how can you study every other 0:43:51.710 --> 0:43:55.400 aspect around them? So with Grant and Elena, before we 0:43:55.400 --> 0:43:58.850 sat down and met with them, I watched every single 0:43:58.850 --> 0:44:01.760 thing that their kids were putting out. I watched all 0:44:01.760 --> 0:44:05.390 of the behind the scenes of their teams content because 0:44:05.390 --> 0:44:08.029 do they have great people around them that are vouching 0:44:08.030 --> 0:44:10.069 for them if they don't have great people around them, 0:44:10.070 --> 0:44:13.160 but they're there promoting that they know how to do 0:44:13.160 --> 0:44:15.810 all of this stuff and that they are these great people, 0:44:15.810 --> 0:44:18.870 great people have other great people around them. That is 0:44:18.870 --> 0:44:21.450 a fact. And so do they have a big enough 0:44:21.450 --> 0:44:24.090 business or a group of leaders around them that do 0:44:24.090 --> 0:44:28.290 vouch for them, that do show up and promote them 0:44:28.290 --> 0:44:30.450 and believe in them and still say the things I 0:44:30.450 --> 0:44:33.510 mean to me, like I am their greatest billboard, but 0:44:33.510 --> 0:44:36.030 it's because I mean it. And it's to my core 0:44:36.060 --> 0:44:38.700 that I believe that those two individuals are just the 0:44:38.700 --> 0:44:41.700 greatest people that I've ever met. But do they have 0:44:41.700 --> 0:44:44.430 a lot of successful people around them, and what do 0:44:44.430 --> 0:44:47.609 their lives look like? Are the people around them winning 0:44:47.610 --> 0:44:50.940 and achieving things and succeeding, or the people around them 0:44:50.940 --> 0:44:53.040 actually doing worse, or do they not promote the people 0:44:53.040 --> 0:44:55.920 around them at all? So I would really be looking 0:44:55.920 --> 0:44:58.200 at not just the one person. You're not just looking 0:44:58.200 --> 0:45:01.560 at Kylie Jenner, or you're not just looking at, you know, 0:45:01.560 --> 0:45:04.170 whoever your influencer of choice is, what is the group 0:45:04.170 --> 0:45:07.500 around them like, and are they winning or are they losing? 0:45:07.500 --> 0:45:10.080 And are they when they get in proximity to these people, 0:45:10.080 --> 0:45:12.989 are they doing worse off than they were beforehand? And 0:45:12.989 --> 0:45:14.580 that to me is such an easy tell of if 0:45:14.580 --> 0:45:18.480 the person truly is influential and actually able to create 0:45:18.480 --> 0:45:21.540 an environment where the people around them become more successful. 0:45:21.540 --> 0:45:25.380 My definition of leadership is making other people success easy. 0:45:25.380 --> 0:45:28.250 So if you really are a leader, how can you 0:45:28.250 --> 0:45:31.069 demonstrate that you have made the people around you their 0:45:31.070 --> 0:45:34.310 success easy through the environment that they are in now 0:45:34.310 --> 0:45:37.370 because of you, through the example that you are creating 0:45:37.370 --> 0:45:40.279 inside their presence like you do, rub off on people. 0:45:40.280 --> 0:45:42.529 Grant did rub off on people. Elena did rub off 0:45:42.530 --> 0:45:44.900 on people. Are those people doing better? And to the 0:45:44.900 --> 0:45:47.000 extent that they are, that's what those are, the people 0:45:47.000 --> 0:45:49.190 you should be going all in on. If they aren't, 0:45:49.190 --> 0:45:51.500 then I would second guess. Are they really the right 0:45:51.500 --> 0:45:53.870 person to be listening to? Because the people who are 0:45:53.870 --> 0:45:57.320 close to them know, like where the bodies are buried, 0:45:57.320 --> 0:46:00.140 if the bodies aren't buried and there aren't any bodies, 0:46:00.140 --> 0:46:02.930 hope like praying that there aren't actually any buried bodies 0:46:02.930 --> 0:46:07.730 or figuratively. Yes, figuratively. Um, then, you know, I watch 0:46:07.730 --> 0:46:10.850 so many social media people and people that we've partnered with, 0:46:10.850 --> 0:46:12.500 and I wish that I would have taken my advice 0:46:12.500 --> 0:46:15.650 earlier on when it comes to investing in businesses, because 0:46:15.650 --> 0:46:18.109 what I see a lot of people who are in 0:46:18.110 --> 0:46:20.210 this game that we're in, which is investing in businesses, 0:46:20.210 --> 0:46:23.420 they don't they don't really critically look at their partners. 0:46:23.420 --> 0:46:25.399 When you look at a business deal that you're about 0:46:25.400 --> 0:46:29.180 to do, what is the family and the friend and 0:46:29.180 --> 0:46:31.910 the coworker situation like, I get that you're looking at 0:46:31.910 --> 0:46:35.540 the founder or the entrepreneur, but it's hard to tell 0:46:35.540 --> 0:46:38.509 just through financials and through somebody doing an interview if 0:46:38.510 --> 0:46:41.290 they're the real deal, If I can get access to 0:46:41.290 --> 0:46:44.919 having dinner with the founder and the spouse, I'm interested. Like, 0:46:44.920 --> 0:46:47.290 what's the dynamic between the two of them? Can I 0:46:47.290 --> 0:46:50.080 actually meet with the team and understand how that founder 0:46:50.080 --> 0:46:52.150 shows up with their team members? Because they're going to 0:46:52.150 --> 0:46:54.610 show me one thing, but they're going to be an 0:46:54.610 --> 0:46:56.560 entirely different person, and the people around them are going 0:46:56.560 --> 0:46:58.540 to demonstrate a totally different side of them. And if 0:46:58.540 --> 0:47:00.730 I can get access to that, when I get access 0:47:00.730 --> 0:47:03.400 to that, we do better deals. When I haven't done that, 0:47:03.400 --> 0:47:05.300 those nine times out of ten are the deals that 0:47:05.300 --> 0:47:07.549 have failed for us. It's because we just thought this 0:47:07.550 --> 0:47:09.560 one person was great, but we didn't have the rest 0:47:09.560 --> 0:47:12.109 of the picture and they didn't have the same core 0:47:12.110 --> 0:47:14.779 values that we have. They didn't demonstrate these things that 0:47:14.780 --> 0:47:17.810 are really important to us, not just inside work and 0:47:17.810 --> 0:47:20.000 not just being a high performer when they show up, 0:47:20.000 --> 0:47:22.610 but the rest of their lives. And, you know, when 0:47:22.610 --> 0:47:24.290 somebody is a fraud and the rest of their lives, 0:47:24.290 --> 0:47:27.469 when other people in their lives aren't vouching for them. Mhm. 0:47:27.739 --> 0:47:31.190 And when you agreed when you. I love that process. 0:47:31.190 --> 0:47:34.520 I mean, I've been part of a lot of investment 0:47:34.520 --> 0:47:38.300 conversations and I think that a lot of the focus 0:47:38.300 --> 0:47:41.630 is on like, like the PNL and that's, that's really 0:47:41.630 --> 0:47:43.850 where it ends. And then you have a founder interview 0:47:43.850 --> 0:47:47.509 and you figure out the founder is good, but sitting 0:47:47.510 --> 0:47:51.320 down with somebody's spouse, meeting their friends, I don't know, 0:47:51.320 --> 0:47:53.690 you just hired somebody from KKR. Do they do that? 0:47:53.690 --> 0:47:55.040 I don't I don't know if they do. They do 0:47:55.040 --> 0:47:57.200 that level of due diligence when they buy a business. 0:47:57.200 --> 0:47:58.190 I don't think so. 0:47:58.460 --> 0:48:00.560 No, I just don't want to do business. If we 0:48:00.560 --> 0:48:03.440 are smaller than KKR because we're not willing to put 0:48:03.440 --> 0:48:05.990 up with the bullshit. They're willing to put up with 0:48:05.989 --> 0:48:09.320 I'm okay with that. We have done enough bad deals 0:48:09.320 --> 0:48:10.819 for me to know that I only want to do 0:48:10.850 --> 0:48:14.090 deals with people that I trust, that believe in me, 0:48:14.090 --> 0:48:17.250 that are rooting for this organization, that are ethical, that 0:48:17.250 --> 0:48:20.790 actually are what they say that they are. And when 0:48:20.790 --> 0:48:24.120 you come into an environment that is all of those things, 0:48:24.120 --> 0:48:25.919 the people are who they say they are. They're authentic, 0:48:25.920 --> 0:48:30.450 they're genuine, they're high performing. Ideally, that repels the bad ones, 0:48:30.450 --> 0:48:33.600 but sometimes people just get so money hungry or they 0:48:33.600 --> 0:48:36.120 think that you're going to give up sooner than you 0:48:36.120 --> 0:48:38.310 really are. They have a short term time horizon, and 0:48:38.310 --> 0:48:40.560 you have a long term time horizon. Like my life 0:48:40.560 --> 0:48:42.450 is too short to have to deal with those people. 0:48:42.450 --> 0:48:45.540 There are enough great business owners out there that are 0:48:45.540 --> 0:48:47.340 the type of people that I want to spend time with, 0:48:47.340 --> 0:48:50.580 that if we have $1 billion fund instead of a 0:48:50.610 --> 0:48:54.239 $100 billion fund, like I'm good because I don't want 0:48:54.239 --> 0:48:56.580 to have to deal with the headaches and the the 0:48:56.580 --> 0:48:58.589 sheer torment, to be honest. And I know you have 0:48:58.590 --> 0:49:02.549 experience like this. The torments of founders who are just 0:49:02.550 --> 0:49:08.730 complete assholes. You couldn't. You couldn't pay me enough. But 0:49:08.730 --> 0:49:10.920 it's so much more than what they're actually able to 0:49:10.920 --> 0:49:13.950 bring to the table that it's. I'm not going to 0:49:13.950 --> 0:49:16.320 do that. And I do think that there's an alternative route. 0:49:17.880 --> 0:49:21.480 Early stage founder is listening to this thinking, okay, I'm 0:49:21.480 --> 0:49:24.330 not not a bad person. I'm an ethical person. I 0:49:24.330 --> 0:49:29.170 check all those boxes. But you mentioned something that's very interesting. 0:49:29.170 --> 0:49:34.719 You want your definition of leadership? Was making success easy 0:49:34.719 --> 0:49:39.459 for other people? Amazing. I love that definition. Founders like shit. 0:49:39.460 --> 0:49:41.650 I'm just trying to build a business. I don't know 0:49:41.650 --> 0:49:43.629 how to make success easy for other people. I'm just 0:49:43.630 --> 0:49:46.810 hiring people and I have SOPs and I hopefully find 0:49:46.810 --> 0:49:50.379 some a talent. And it's like it's it's so much 0:49:50.380 --> 0:49:54.790 that what you know, I'm trying to figure out how 0:49:54.790 --> 0:49:57.040 do I create success for other people? Maybe I kind 0:49:57.040 --> 0:49:59.440 of know where their career aspirations and goals are, but 0:49:59.440 --> 0:50:03.610 it's a startup. Everyone's struggling, everyone's stressed out, everything's on 0:50:03.610 --> 0:50:06.220 fire every single day. And I'm doing my best. And 0:50:06.219 --> 0:50:09.189 I'm working from six in the morning till 11 at night. 0:50:09.190 --> 0:50:12.070 How am I really supposed to invest more into my people? 0:50:12.070 --> 0:50:14.799 What is like a very easy way to invest into 0:50:14.800 --> 0:50:17.200 my people so that their success is easier because of me, 0:50:17.200 --> 0:50:19.090 because I don't even feel as a business owner, my 0:50:19.090 --> 0:50:21.640 own success is easy, and I think that's a reality 0:50:21.640 --> 0:50:23.410 for a lot of people, especially in the in the 0:50:23.410 --> 0:50:26.230 SMB space and the people you serve. Sub $10 million, 0:50:26.230 --> 0:50:29.020 nothing feels easy. Your own success as an entrepreneur doesn't 0:50:29.020 --> 0:50:31.689 feel easy. So how am I going to give my 0:50:31.690 --> 0:50:34.210 energy and my time to all the people that work 0:50:34.210 --> 0:50:36.250 for me so that Natalie comes in, she wants to 0:50:36.250 --> 0:50:38.830 buy my business? They don't say that. Yeah, Scott's not 0:50:38.830 --> 0:50:43.680 a bad guy, but, I mean, I haven't upskilled I 0:50:43.680 --> 0:50:45.900 haven't learned anything new. I kind of just do my 0:50:45.900 --> 0:50:49.830 job sometimes, like, we get stressed out and things aren't working, 0:50:49.830 --> 0:50:51.360 which I think is pretty like this is like a 0:50:51.360 --> 0:50:55.350 standard definition of almost any business. Everybody. So what's the 0:50:55.380 --> 0:50:59.100 what's the strategy to make people's success easier when you're 0:50:59.100 --> 0:51:00.300 already stressed yourself? 0:51:00.300 --> 0:51:02.700 It's a great question. That one's like the deep one 0:51:02.700 --> 0:51:05.450 for me. I would say that if you're starting the 0:51:05.450 --> 0:51:10.399 conversation with their goals, somebody is coming to you making $60,000. 0:51:10.400 --> 0:51:11.840 I'll give you a real example. Someone is coming to 0:51:11.840 --> 0:51:15.140 you making $60,000 a year. They want to make $400,000 0:51:15.140 --> 0:51:18.920 a year. You want to drive that person to the 0:51:18.920 --> 0:51:22.220 things that would allow them to make $400,000 a year. 0:51:22.460 --> 0:51:24.290 We had a team member come to us that was 0:51:24.290 --> 0:51:27.350 making $60,000 a year. And her goals, when we sat 0:51:27.350 --> 0:51:30.710 down and talked to her having this conversation was in 0:51:30.710 --> 0:51:34.339 the next 18 months, she wanted to make $250,000. Like 0:51:34.340 --> 0:51:36.950 in the role that you're in right now. It was 0:51:36.950 --> 0:51:40.910 an operations function. There is no possibility of you making 0:51:40.940 --> 0:51:43.850 $250,000 a year if this is not real in the 0:51:43.850 --> 0:51:46.850 next 18 months. This is the business owner. This is 0:51:46.850 --> 0:51:49.460 me being a coach in this situation because you're telling 0:51:49.460 --> 0:51:51.320 me you want to do something. And if I believe 0:51:51.320 --> 0:51:53.160 you that you want to do something, I have to 0:51:53.160 --> 0:51:57.690 tell you when. That doesn't make sense here. But ideally, 0:51:57.690 --> 0:52:01.110 you're able to create a different path to keep this 0:52:01.110 --> 0:52:03.930 really engaged person, somebody who wants to be able to 0:52:03.930 --> 0:52:07.560 create something great and share with them what success could 0:52:07.560 --> 0:52:10.739 look like. So this person had never sold anything. She 0:52:10.739 --> 0:52:13.319 actually was working on her doctor of chiropractic. So she 0:52:13.320 --> 0:52:17.200 had just finished chiropractic school. And when she sat down 0:52:17.200 --> 0:52:19.030 and told me this, I said, the only way that 0:52:19.030 --> 0:52:21.910 I see you during this organization, she was our 12th employee, 0:52:21.910 --> 0:52:25.210 and being able to make $250,000 a year is through 0:52:25.210 --> 0:52:28.390 becoming a salesperson. And if you become a salesperson and 0:52:28.390 --> 0:52:31.870 you learn the most valuable lesson that a business like 0:52:31.900 --> 0:52:34.900 ours is struggling with, which is how to get customers 0:52:34.900 --> 0:52:37.450 in and convert them into our products and services, you 0:52:37.450 --> 0:52:40.900 won't be paid that and then some. So she thought 0:52:40.900 --> 0:52:43.080 about it for a week and a half and she's like, sure, 0:52:43.080 --> 0:52:46.229 I'll become a salesperson. And so we transitioned her over 0:52:46.230 --> 0:52:48.930 two months because she's still fulfilling that operations function. So 0:52:48.930 --> 0:52:51.479 business owners, like they're still in the function that they're 0:52:51.480 --> 0:52:56.400 originally in. But she's pivoted over to sales. She cried 0:52:56.400 --> 0:52:59.850 every single day for the first 90 days. Like it 0:52:59.850 --> 0:53:03.029 was like a patch up job every single day being 0:53:03.030 --> 0:53:05.310 told no 250 times. Most of the time, people not 0:53:05.310 --> 0:53:09.000 even answering the phone call. Fast forward one year later, 0:53:09.000 --> 0:53:12.450 she had made $250,000. Think she made like 280. Then 0:53:12.450 --> 0:53:16.530 she made 350. Then she made 400,000. But ultimately she 0:53:16.530 --> 0:53:18.450 never wanted to be a salesperson. She wanted to make 0:53:18.480 --> 0:53:22.140 $250,000 a year, to then be able to service people 0:53:22.140 --> 0:53:25.110 in the health care space. So as an organization, we 0:53:25.110 --> 0:53:28.350 bought this little company called Streamline Medical, rebranded it to 0:53:28.350 --> 0:53:31.900 Ten-x health, bolted on another company in order to grow 0:53:31.900 --> 0:53:35.770 its revenue, and we needed a director of sales. This 0:53:35.770 --> 0:53:39.880 team member is now the director of sales at Ten-x Health, 0:53:40.300 --> 0:53:43.870 leading a 50 person team, all because when she was 0:53:43.870 --> 0:53:47.830 24 years old, she was very honest by saying, I'm 0:53:47.830 --> 0:53:51.460 making $60,000 a year. My value and contribution today is 0:53:51.460 --> 0:53:55.370 50,000 or $60,000 a year. But I have these goals 0:53:55.370 --> 0:53:59.660 and we shoved her to where the business needed help 0:53:59.660 --> 0:54:02.960 right then and there, and it eventually ended up leading 0:54:02.960 --> 0:54:05.180 her back to what her goals were originally, which was 0:54:05.180 --> 0:54:07.460 to be part of a health and wellness company. That 0:54:07.460 --> 0:54:09.500 was tied to why she went to chiropractic school to 0:54:09.500 --> 0:54:12.169 begin with. And so when you really take it as like, 0:54:12.170 --> 0:54:15.560 it's not this overwhelming concept of tying your team members 0:54:15.560 --> 0:54:17.650 to the goals of the business. This is a hand 0:54:17.650 --> 0:54:21.609 to hand combat, 1 to 1 conversation. You hire somebody, 0:54:21.610 --> 0:54:23.920 they tell you that they are making 80,000, but they 0:54:23.920 --> 0:54:26.380 only want to make 90,000. Is that person really going 0:54:26.380 --> 0:54:28.359 to be the person that helps you create this next 0:54:28.360 --> 0:54:31.090 level of growth in your business? Probably not. Early on. 0:54:31.090 --> 0:54:34.300 You only want to be hiring very growth oriented team 0:54:34.300 --> 0:54:38.080 members because you need them to want to grow. And 0:54:38.080 --> 0:54:39.940 then when you're talking to them and they tell you 0:54:39.940 --> 0:54:44.030 that they have these large growth goals, how do you craft? 0:54:44.030 --> 0:54:46.760 This doesn't take hours. It probably takes 30 minutes with 0:54:46.760 --> 0:54:50.030 each individual person. You have 12 team members, okay. If 0:54:50.030 --> 0:54:54.439 Bob wants to go from 80,000 to 120,000, what would 0:54:54.440 --> 0:54:57.049 he actually have to do in our product team in 0:54:57.050 --> 0:55:01.219 order to drive a $400,000 of additional revenue for him 0:55:01.219 --> 0:55:03.890 to be able to make this additional 30 or $40,000 0:55:03.890 --> 0:55:07.730 a year. And if the gap between what they want 0:55:07.730 --> 0:55:10.490 to make and where they're making is so large, but 0:55:10.489 --> 0:55:12.410 they think that they can do it, why not have 0:55:12.410 --> 0:55:16.160 them propose to you what value they could add, what 0:55:16.160 --> 0:55:18.170 skill set they could bring to the table, what they 0:55:18.170 --> 0:55:20.810 would need investment in for them to go learn to 0:55:20.810 --> 0:55:24.500 invest in education and courses and content to actually get 0:55:24.500 --> 0:55:27.920 those skills that you're specifically looking for from that person. 0:55:27.920 --> 0:55:29.450 And so the less you think of it as like 0:55:29.450 --> 0:55:32.670 a general, how do I, as a business owner, overcome this? 0:55:32.670 --> 0:55:35.430 And you think about it individually and you're crafting these 0:55:35.430 --> 0:55:38.520 plans for your team members, the more success you're going 0:55:38.520 --> 0:55:41.160 to have with actually creating the success, because you need 0:55:41.160 --> 0:55:44.010 those team members to up level their skills to grow. 0:55:44.040 --> 0:55:47.460 You're just helping them make their success easy by saying, great, 0:55:47.460 --> 0:55:49.950 this is the marketing course. This is the funnels course, 0:55:49.950 --> 0:55:52.710 this is the sales content and training and plan. And 0:55:52.710 --> 0:55:54.140 this is what this is going to have to look like. 0:55:54.140 --> 0:55:57.320 And you're demonstrating that success as a business owner, because 0:55:57.320 --> 0:55:59.150 if you're doing $8 million a year and you're trying 0:55:59.150 --> 0:56:01.700 to get to 50, you're listening to a podcast like this, 0:56:01.700 --> 0:56:04.220 you're up leveling your skills. You're sharing this stuff with 0:56:04.219 --> 0:56:06.799 your team. You're sending that example of what it takes. 0:56:06.800 --> 0:56:10.250 You have a goal. You get really technical about what 0:56:10.250 --> 0:56:12.080 skills you need to learn right now in order to 0:56:12.080 --> 0:56:14.569 get to the next step, and then you're duplicating that 0:56:14.570 --> 0:56:16.850 across the other team members who are looking at you 0:56:16.850 --> 0:56:20.069 as the person who's the example for the success inside 0:56:20.070 --> 0:56:21.180 the organization. 0:56:21.480 --> 0:56:23.700 I think you're doing it very well, and I think 0:56:23.700 --> 0:56:27.300 that people may not understand how impactful and useful that 0:56:27.300 --> 0:56:31.319 strategy that you just gave is, because I've seen the 0:56:31.320 --> 0:56:33.990 other side of it. I've seen the market where people 0:56:33.989 --> 0:56:37.500 are planning on jumping between competitors because it's easier to 0:56:37.500 --> 0:56:41.100 advance your career by going from company one to company two, 0:56:41.130 --> 0:56:44.160 because nobody invests in them and I think the bigger company, 0:56:44.160 --> 0:56:45.960 some do it okay. I think a lot of them 0:56:45.960 --> 0:56:48.090 miss the mark on that. I'll even tell you a 0:56:48.090 --> 0:56:51.750 wild story. Early on in my career, I was trying 0:56:51.750 --> 0:56:56.910 to move from small market to mid market sales, and 0:56:56.910 --> 0:57:00.210 there was a base and a compensation package. And, uh, 0:57:00.210 --> 0:57:02.820 my director at the time, he was arguing for a 0:57:02.820 --> 0:57:05.879 higher compensation they were offering at candidates who were coming 0:57:05.880 --> 0:57:07.900 from outside the organization, as opposed to what they could 0:57:07.900 --> 0:57:10.239 offer people that were internally promoted. And for some reason, 0:57:10.239 --> 0:57:12.969 it was like a $10,000 difference. So if you're internally promoted, 0:57:12.969 --> 0:57:15.160 you get say like 65. If you came from the outside, 0:57:15.160 --> 0:57:17.110 you can make 75. And he's like, this is the 0:57:17.110 --> 0:57:19.600 dumbest thing I've ever. So what we actually ended up 0:57:19.600 --> 0:57:22.330 doing is I ended up resigning and then applying, and 0:57:22.330 --> 0:57:24.310 then he brought me in as an external candidate. Like, 0:57:24.310 --> 0:57:28.180 how stupid, how stupid is it for a business to 0:57:28.180 --> 0:57:31.450 do that like that? That's absolutely ridiculous. So this is 0:57:31.450 --> 0:57:35.470 obviously the complete 180 of that type of mindset. Um, 0:57:36.040 --> 0:57:37.930 I know, I just think it's amazing. I think it's 0:57:37.930 --> 0:57:40.360 I think it's a very smart way to foster talent 0:57:40.360 --> 0:57:43.360 from within. Yeah. Just one more thought on what you 0:57:43.360 --> 0:57:46.450 just mentioned because I love this. Um, I think sales 0:57:46.450 --> 0:57:50.200 is such an important strategy. Obviously, Cardon is a very 0:57:50.200 --> 0:57:54.280 sales heavy organization. Yeah. This is how it all started out. Um, 0:57:54.820 --> 0:57:57.939 do you believe that? And I believe that at least 0:57:57.940 --> 0:57:59.890 entrepreneurs should be salespeople, and that's one of the most 0:57:59.890 --> 0:58:03.190 important skills to a point, like you mentioned. But do 0:58:03.190 --> 0:58:06.310 you believe that anybody can become a salesperson? Absolutely. 0:58:06.310 --> 0:58:09.490 Every single person in your organization, unless you have some 0:58:09.490 --> 0:58:13.570 licensure issue, like in a legal business or in a 0:58:13.570 --> 0:58:16.870 handful of medical businesses, you can't have your front office 0:58:16.870 --> 0:58:20.690 person selling certain procedures or certain services, but outside of 0:58:20.690 --> 0:58:25.490 some license issue, every single person in an organization should 0:58:25.490 --> 0:58:29.300 be training every day on the products and services and 0:58:29.300 --> 0:58:32.720 how to overcome objections for that business, because that is 0:58:32.720 --> 0:58:35.210 your expansion, especially if you are a small business. If 0:58:35.210 --> 0:58:38.720 you're a small business, you have five people to help 0:58:38.720 --> 0:58:41.270 you hit your growth goals. If you do not equip 0:58:41.270 --> 0:58:44.419 those five people to help you. Whose job is it 0:58:44.420 --> 0:58:47.690 to hit your growth goals? It's yours. You are entirely 0:58:47.810 --> 0:58:52.850 like holding all of this responsibility yourself. Instead of saying, hey, wait, 0:58:52.850 --> 0:58:55.790 there's five people. All of us are joined together through 0:58:55.790 --> 0:58:58.790 this mission. All of us are tied financially to the 0:58:58.790 --> 0:59:01.670 success of this organization. So I'm going to equip you 0:59:01.670 --> 0:59:03.979 guys with the right skills so that when you're having 0:59:03.980 --> 0:59:06.800 a conversation with somebody in an elevator, when you're having 0:59:06.800 --> 0:59:09.080 a conversation with somebody, some business owner, that would be 0:59:09.080 --> 0:59:12.230 the perfect fit for our organization at a coffee shop 0:59:12.230 --> 0:59:14.690 or a smoothie shop, or at a restaurant or at 0:59:14.690 --> 0:59:18.650 a at a networking event. You can confidently talk about 0:59:18.650 --> 0:59:22.220 what your products are and move them through a close. 0:59:22.220 --> 0:59:24.260 And if you're not training your people on how to 0:59:24.260 --> 0:59:26.570 do that, you're just accepting the fact that it is 0:59:26.570 --> 0:59:30.410 your responsibility. But then you're also wondering why everybody in 0:59:30.410 --> 0:59:33.900 your organization is disengaged. Well, of course they're disengaged because 0:59:33.900 --> 0:59:35.910 they don't know how to make any more money. You've 0:59:35.910 --> 0:59:38.310 hired them, you've set a salary for them. You don't 0:59:38.310 --> 0:59:41.430 have incentive compensation created. You don't have a commission structure 0:59:41.430 --> 0:59:43.200 in place. You're not training them on how they can 0:59:43.200 --> 0:59:46.170 make more money. So why would they stay engaged? The 0:59:46.170 --> 0:59:48.180 only reason that somebody is listening to a podcast like 0:59:48.180 --> 0:59:51.540 this is because they are interested in growing some skill set. 0:59:51.540 --> 0:59:56.550 If your value prop in your podcast was success stories, 0:59:56.550 --> 0:59:58.770 how to be the same in one year from now 0:59:58.770 --> 1:00:01.470 as you are today, no one would be listening to this. 1:00:01.500 --> 1:00:02.490 That's not a great tagline. 1:00:02.490 --> 1:00:04.710 It's a terrible tagline. But that's what we do to 1:00:04.710 --> 1:00:07.080 team members. That's what corporate America does to team members. 1:00:07.080 --> 1:00:09.330 They say, come in, we're going to set a base 1:00:09.330 --> 1:00:11.550 for you. We're not going to be smart enough to 1:00:11.550 --> 1:00:13.800 figure out what incentive metrics are. We're not going to 1:00:13.800 --> 1:00:16.140 have a conversation about what your goals are, because heaven 1:00:16.140 --> 1:00:18.810 forbid you tell us something that is important to you 1:00:18.820 --> 1:00:21.790 and then you sue us because you said something like, 1:00:21.790 --> 1:00:24.190 we've just created all of these weird structures and all 1:00:24.190 --> 1:00:27.490 of these weird, weird rules where business owners actually are 1:00:27.490 --> 1:00:32.020 creating a game where people only can be disengaged. That's 1:00:32.020 --> 1:00:34.840 their only default, is to be disengaged, because why else 1:00:34.840 --> 1:00:37.390 would I be engaged? They don't think of this people 1:00:37.390 --> 1:00:40.419 strategy as a game where they're playing something, and every 1:00:40.420 --> 1:00:42.550 single day they get to figure out this different way 1:00:42.550 --> 1:00:45.630 to engage great people, to get the best talent to 1:00:45.630 --> 1:00:49.770 them themselves. Be people in an organization worthy of having 1:00:49.770 --> 1:00:52.080 the best people. And so instead, they just bitched to 1:00:52.080 --> 1:00:55.350 their significant other all night long about how terrible Sally is, 1:00:55.350 --> 1:00:57.180 or Bob is or Susan is, and nobody wants to 1:00:57.180 --> 1:00:59.160 help them in their business. Well, if you allowed people 1:00:59.160 --> 1:01:01.200 to sell on your business, you'd at least be giving 1:01:01.200 --> 1:01:02.790 them a game to figure out how they can make 1:01:02.790 --> 1:01:07.590 more money, which is actually the contract that you guys have. 1:01:07.590 --> 1:01:10.110 Even if you're in a family business, the contract between 1:01:10.110 --> 1:01:13.530 team members, if you are working inside an organization and 1:01:13.530 --> 1:01:16.590 you have employed somebody, the contract is a financial one. 1:01:16.590 --> 1:01:18.960 If you stopped paying them, they would not show up 1:01:18.960 --> 1:01:22.350 on Monday morning. And yet we don't continue to create 1:01:22.350 --> 1:01:25.140 on the contract. We think that because they're nice or 1:01:25.140 --> 1:01:27.360 their family member, we don't want to upset them, that 1:01:27.360 --> 1:01:29.670 we're not going to hold them accountable. It's ridiculous. And 1:01:29.670 --> 1:01:31.640 then we also bitch and complain about why people aren't 1:01:31.640 --> 1:01:34.190 helping us grow our businesses. We've never created a structure 1:01:34.190 --> 1:01:35.060 for them to do that. 1:01:36.350 --> 1:01:40.070 That's an interesting. So it's interesting because I've seen the 1:01:40.070 --> 1:01:43.190 exact opposite, where part of the variable comp is tied 1:01:43.190 --> 1:01:46.970 to the company's performance, yet the person has no direct 1:01:46.970 --> 1:01:50.480 impact or perceived direct impact. I mean, everything impacts, but 1:01:50.480 --> 1:01:53.300 then it just creates this apathetic like, well, whatever happens, 1:01:53.300 --> 1:01:55.390 happens and I'm going to show up and clock in 1:01:55.390 --> 1:01:58.330 and clock out. How do you get people on board 1:01:58.330 --> 1:02:01.750 with becoming evangelist salespeople for the company? How do you 1:02:01.750 --> 1:02:04.840 remove the stigma of sales? Because there is there's always 1:02:04.840 --> 1:02:07.060 a stigma around sales, and there's a certain kind of 1:02:07.060 --> 1:02:08.740 person that likes to do it, and there's a lot 1:02:08.740 --> 1:02:12.100 of people that don't like to be sales. Right. So 1:02:12.100 --> 1:02:15.070 how do you get somebody to buy into this concept? 1:02:15.070 --> 1:02:18.070 Because once they once the money comes in, it's easy. 1:02:18.520 --> 1:02:22.480 But there's so much pressure and negativity around the concept 1:02:22.480 --> 1:02:26.200 of sales that for a lot of people, the gap 1:02:26.200 --> 1:02:29.650 between the first commission check and where they're at now 1:02:29.650 --> 1:02:32.980 in a product manager role is too big for them 1:02:32.980 --> 1:02:34.960 to understand. Okay, I'm going to start to go down 1:02:34.960 --> 1:02:36.370 this path and I'm going to start to be okay 1:02:36.370 --> 1:02:37.750 with rejection. I'm going to start to be okay with 1:02:37.750 --> 1:02:40.090 putting myself out there and calling people and emailing people, 1:02:40.090 --> 1:02:44.000 having conversations and evangelizing the company I'm working for. What's 1:02:44.000 --> 1:02:47.330 the what's the way to to tie it together? I 1:02:47.330 --> 1:02:47.720 have such. 1:02:47.720 --> 1:02:50.390 A hack for this. We're wild for this. Since we 1:02:50.390 --> 1:02:53.450 started this organization, we've had a daily alt meeting with 1:02:53.450 --> 1:02:58.520 every single person in our company. So today at 1145 eastern, 1:02:58.520 --> 1:03:01.970 845 Pacific, our entire company will hop on a call. 1:03:01.970 --> 1:03:04.730 And there's a bunch of things that we do operationally 1:03:04.730 --> 1:03:07.160 and culturally on the beginning of that call, but the 1:03:07.160 --> 1:03:10.440 end of that call, every single day we pull up 1:03:10.440 --> 1:03:14.370 what's called the Cardone wheel and the Cardone wheel. Cardone 1:03:14.370 --> 1:03:17.580 stands for Cardinal University, has this like, Wheel of Fortune 1:03:17.580 --> 1:03:19.950 type thing on an iPad, and we spin the wheel, 1:03:19.950 --> 1:03:22.380 and every single person in the company's name is on 1:03:22.380 --> 1:03:25.560 this wheel. And so it spins and it lands on 1:03:25.560 --> 1:03:29.250 one person, and that one person shares with the whole company, 1:03:29.250 --> 1:03:32.850 whether we were 12 employees or now 350 employees. What 1:03:32.850 --> 1:03:36.180 they learned the day before from Carleton University, and then 1:03:36.180 --> 1:03:38.850 they role play in front of everybody. 1:03:39.330 --> 1:03:41.669 That's so stressful. But I guess you build it into 1:03:41.670 --> 1:03:43.650 the you build it into the culture of the company. 1:03:43.650 --> 1:03:45.300 So now you don't want to be the you don't 1:03:45.300 --> 1:03:47.850 want to be the the outlier. Right. That doesn't know 1:03:47.850 --> 1:03:51.480 something that can't role play. So you set the expectation, 1:03:51.600 --> 1:03:53.640 but it also normalizes it because everyone's doing it. 1:03:53.640 --> 1:03:58.080 Every single person is doing it whether you're a product tech, recruiting, videography, 1:03:58.080 --> 1:04:00.300 obviously sales are the best at it, but sometimes we 1:04:00.300 --> 1:04:02.580 have people in finance who just crush it and I'm like, 1:04:02.580 --> 1:04:04.560 oh my gosh, you should be a sales person. You 1:04:04.560 --> 1:04:06.600 could make more money if you were doing this versus 1:04:06.600 --> 1:04:10.440 doing that. But so we normalize this culture of everything 1:04:10.440 --> 1:04:12.810 that you want in life is a sale. So if 1:04:12.810 --> 1:04:14.640 you're saying to us you want to make more money, 1:04:14.640 --> 1:04:16.320 this is exactly what this looks like, and we're going 1:04:16.320 --> 1:04:18.420 to give you the tools to help you get better 1:04:18.420 --> 1:04:20.340 at this. We're not going to let you fail. The 1:04:20.340 --> 1:04:23.280 the purpose is not to make people look silly. But 1:04:23.280 --> 1:04:25.110 imagine you're showing up to to your first day of 1:04:25.110 --> 1:04:28.650 work inside our organization. Like it is just part of 1:04:28.650 --> 1:04:30.780 the culture, and the team is supportive and the chat 1:04:30.780 --> 1:04:33.810 and they're giving pointers and they're sharing what the links are. 1:04:33.840 --> 1:04:38.010 Carnal ventures.com/people. That's for upcoming essentials workshop. And they're just 1:04:38.010 --> 1:04:41.520 like figuring out how to help the person who's working 1:04:41.520 --> 1:04:45.420 through the sales process. But you're doing your team members 1:04:45.450 --> 1:04:49.890 a disservice if you are not addressing that. The number 1:04:49.890 --> 1:04:52.200 one skill that they can learn in a business is 1:04:52.200 --> 1:04:55.560 to sell. You are selling yourself. You are selling your team. 1:04:55.560 --> 1:04:58.020 You are selling the product. You are selling the opportunity. 1:04:58.020 --> 1:05:02.820 You are constantly selling in any successful role. And so 1:05:02.820 --> 1:05:06.330 why do we think that we shouldn't allow people to 1:05:06.870 --> 1:05:10.000 hone that skill set to develop that, to overcome that 1:05:10.000 --> 1:05:12.760 negative mindset? To me, it just demonstrates that a company 1:05:12.760 --> 1:05:16.060 isn't really willing to have harder conversations about what true 1:05:16.060 --> 1:05:19.330 value creation looks like in a business. True value is 1:05:19.330 --> 1:05:22.120 being able to overcome things that you're uncomfortable with. In 1:05:22.120 --> 1:05:25.360 my head of product cannot figure out how to intelligently 1:05:25.360 --> 1:05:28.660 speak and talk to the value proposition of our organization 1:05:28.660 --> 1:05:33.070 to a potential client. They're not the right product officer 1:05:33.070 --> 1:05:35.470 inside our organization. They can go work. They can work 1:05:35.470 --> 1:05:37.390 for Facebook. They can work for some other place. They 1:05:37.390 --> 1:05:39.820 are not the right person for us because we want people. 1:05:39.820 --> 1:05:41.890 I want that product officer to be able to sell 1:05:41.890 --> 1:05:44.560 to me why I should listen to their idea. If 1:05:44.560 --> 1:05:46.330 they can't do that with me and they can't do 1:05:46.330 --> 1:05:48.460 that with a customer, they're not the right person. 1:05:48.820 --> 1:05:53.170 Yeah, I think that that's an incredible it's an incredible strategy. 1:05:53.170 --> 1:05:55.030 I don't think many companies do that and. 1:05:55.030 --> 1:05:56.020 Most companies fail. 1:05:56.260 --> 1:05:58.000 I 97%. Yeah. 1:05:58.000 --> 1:06:00.820 So because they're not willing to have the conversation and 1:06:00.820 --> 1:06:03.040 we become so complacent with like, oh, I'm just gonna 1:06:03.040 --> 1:06:04.780 let my recruitment people be who they. 1:06:05.200 --> 1:06:08.980 Well, developers. Developers are a certain personality type recruit a 1:06:08.980 --> 1:06:12.370 certain I mean, and then there's this whole animosity between 1:06:12.370 --> 1:06:15.010 marketing and sales because marketing is like, oh, you know, 1:06:15.010 --> 1:06:17.740 like we we're the intellectual component of the revenue and 1:06:17.740 --> 1:06:19.990 sales is like, oh, well, no, we actually make the money. 1:06:19.990 --> 1:06:24.610 And then you have all this, these compartmentalized, siloed business 1:06:24.610 --> 1:06:28.600 units that that don't play well together. I mean, go 1:06:28.600 --> 1:06:31.660 to any company. And I mean, there's not a hard 1:06:31.660 --> 1:06:34.930 and fast rule, but go have a conversation between a 1:06:34.930 --> 1:06:38.860 CRO and a CTO. And it's like they're speaking different 1:06:38.860 --> 1:06:42.520 languages from different planets and there's no cohesion. And I 1:06:42.520 --> 1:06:45.930 think it actually really inhibits I mean, I've been on 1:06:46.410 --> 1:06:48.750 I've been on zoom calls where CTO refuses to even 1:06:48.780 --> 1:06:51.990 turn on a camera or does like work until four 1:06:51.990 --> 1:06:54.120 in the morning so they don't show up for morning meetings, like, 1:06:54.120 --> 1:06:59.640 like just completely different cultures, and you end up disrespecting 1:06:59.640 --> 1:07:01.080 each other and you end up making all of your 1:07:01.080 --> 1:07:04.709 jobs harder, too. It's worked well. I'm assuming. 1:07:04.710 --> 1:07:05.459 It's worked. 1:07:05.460 --> 1:07:07.530 Great. I've never heard anybody say this before. It's such 1:07:07.530 --> 1:07:10.430 a sales heavy organization, but it's very interesting. It's a 1:07:10.430 --> 1:07:11.690 new concept I've never heard before. 1:07:11.690 --> 1:07:13.850 You have to cut the shit. Yeah, like, what is 1:07:13.850 --> 1:07:16.850 the purpose of a business? It is to service customers. 1:07:16.850 --> 1:07:19.460 In order to service customers, you have to get customers. 1:07:19.940 --> 1:07:22.670 You have to sell like sales is a part of 1:07:22.820 --> 1:07:25.820 the CTO and the CRO having a conversation. We have 1:07:25.820 --> 1:07:29.690 to remember and realign our teams with why we're here 1:07:29.690 --> 1:07:33.140 and if we're here to solve customer's customers problems by 1:07:33.140 --> 1:07:35.930 selling them on why we are the best. Let's let's 1:07:35.930 --> 1:07:37.760 make that the DNA of the company. I don't want 1:07:37.760 --> 1:07:40.160 to hear the conversation between the CRO and the CTO 1:07:40.160 --> 1:07:43.940 having their like, fiefdoms. And I'm going to be in 1:07:43.940 --> 1:07:46.040 my side and our team is going to be against you. 1:07:46.070 --> 1:07:48.410 We are one team. We are one team that has 1:07:48.410 --> 1:07:51.920 one expectation. And if you the further you get from 1:07:51.920 --> 1:07:54.800 why the business exists, which is to sell customers, to 1:07:54.800 --> 1:07:57.660 move the business forward and ideally offer a great product 1:07:57.660 --> 1:07:59.880 and service, a solution to their problem. The further you 1:07:59.880 --> 1:08:02.940 get from that, you spend time and your executives spend 1:08:02.940 --> 1:08:06.660 time dealing with this bullshit of different opinions. How we're 1:08:06.660 --> 1:08:09.600 going to work in certain ways. So us ingraining this 1:08:09.600 --> 1:08:11.670 into our culture. Sure, we've had people that don't want 1:08:11.670 --> 1:08:13.410 to be a part of it that has not stopped 1:08:13.410 --> 1:08:16.799 us from growing. We will find people who are interested 1:08:16.800 --> 1:08:19.290 and are okay with this, and it's the way that 1:08:19.290 --> 1:08:21.720 we want our culture to be created. And so maybe 1:08:21.720 --> 1:08:25.260 for the business owner or the the listener who's in 1:08:25.260 --> 1:08:27.540 an organization right now, you're like, this could never fly 1:08:27.540 --> 1:08:30.750 inside our business. You have to ask yourself, why? Why 1:08:30.750 --> 1:08:33.360 would this not work inside your organization? Who would you 1:08:33.390 --> 1:08:36.090 be pissing off? And when you think about those individuals, 1:08:36.090 --> 1:08:38.010 it's likely a handful of people. It's not a groups 1:08:38.010 --> 1:08:39.690 of people. It's a handful of people. 1:08:39.840 --> 1:08:40.740 They all have egos. 1:08:40.740 --> 1:08:42.960 Yeah, yeah. But then why are we being reasonable to 1:08:42.960 --> 1:08:46.349 the egos if we know that this is what's beneficial, 1:08:46.350 --> 1:08:48.870 not just to your CTO. Your CTO probably knows how 1:08:48.870 --> 1:08:50.939 to sell because that's how they got the job they got, 1:08:50.939 --> 1:08:53.759 like selling themselves. They have some sort of confidence. They 1:08:53.760 --> 1:08:56.400 have some sort of skill set that they're able to say, 1:08:56.400 --> 1:08:58.560 this is my resume because I was able to do 1:08:58.560 --> 1:09:00.990 these great things. But what what are we doing to 1:09:00.990 --> 1:09:03.780 help that CTO actually develop their team members to have 1:09:03.780 --> 1:09:07.410 those skills? We're we're letting the person who sleeps in 1:09:07.410 --> 1:09:10.509 until 4:00 doesn't show up to team meetings. Setting the 1:09:10.510 --> 1:09:13.300 worst example. But they're supposed to be helping the people 1:09:13.300 --> 1:09:16.120 underneath them get to the next level of success. It's 1:09:16.120 --> 1:09:18.310 very unlikely that those people are actually going to be 1:09:18.310 --> 1:09:20.320 able to develop the right skills, because they don't have 1:09:20.320 --> 1:09:22.750 a leader who's focused on the right things. If you 1:09:22.750 --> 1:09:25.540 focus on the right things sales, the business growth through sales, 1:09:25.540 --> 1:09:28.180 it doesn't grow through anything else. There's no magical thing 1:09:28.180 --> 1:09:31.330 that happens that doesn't allow the business to grow through sales. 1:09:31.330 --> 1:09:33.310 If we're not teaching that to people, we're actually doing 1:09:33.310 --> 1:09:35.559 them a disservice and not teaching them what the value 1:09:35.560 --> 1:09:39.939 is of their role, regardless of their in HR, accounting, tech, whatever. 1:09:40.300 --> 1:09:42.849 And when you see this, when, when you don't solve 1:09:42.850 --> 1:09:45.430 this problem early on and when you don't create cohesion 1:09:45.430 --> 1:09:48.970 throughout all your team members, what you see as a 1:09:48.970 --> 1:09:53.890 company scales is you'll see different departments actually like fighting 1:09:53.890 --> 1:09:56.140 each other. And this is I mean, I've seen this 1:09:56.140 --> 1:10:03.400 several times where like, a company was acquired and then 1:10:03.400 --> 1:10:06.280 a certain, a certain tech piece of the business was 1:10:06.280 --> 1:10:09.370 building a competitive product to the company that was just acquired. 1:10:09.370 --> 1:10:12.519 And basically you're cannibalizing yourself or you're competing yourself or 1:10:12.520 --> 1:10:16.330 you're you're you have two similar products and tech is 1:10:16.330 --> 1:10:19.809 pushing one, and then marketing is pushing one. And it's 1:10:19.810 --> 1:10:23.439 just messy. It's very messy. If everybody feels like like 1:10:23.439 --> 1:10:25.510 a fiefdom, I love that, like everybody is sort of 1:10:25.510 --> 1:10:29.740 king of their own little part of the business. Um, 1:10:30.010 --> 1:10:33.189 it creates a ton of mess and it will only 1:10:33.189 --> 1:10:37.030 get worse, and it'll make everything more difficult to scale 1:10:37.030 --> 1:10:38.950 as you grow. And I think that this is probably 1:10:38.950 --> 1:10:41.650 why now I'm unpacking why you've been able to grow 1:10:41.650 --> 1:10:46.080 so quickly. You focus on cohesion. You focus on everyone 1:10:46.080 --> 1:10:48.780 in the brand. Being an evangelist, you focus on being 1:10:48.780 --> 1:10:51.780 a people first business, but you're doing it and you 1:10:51.780 --> 1:10:56.610 found ways to build process around it. Even at $1 billion, 1:10:56.610 --> 1:10:59.490 assets under management, even with hundreds of millions of dollars 1:10:59.490 --> 1:11:01.830 in revenue. So I think a lot of people start 1:11:01.830 --> 1:11:04.410 out with the right intentions, but I think as they grow, 1:11:04.439 --> 1:11:08.700 I think they lose sight. And then the corporate America 1:11:08.700 --> 1:11:13.280 example is what happens, not the Cardone Ventures, Cardone Capital 1:11:13.280 --> 1:11:16.220 Cardone example, which is really what you're trying to preserve. 1:11:16.220 --> 1:11:19.610 So you don't sacrifice that at the for the sake 1:11:19.610 --> 1:11:21.110 of scale and growth for sure. 1:11:21.110 --> 1:11:24.530 And the small business owner. Yeah, if I can just 1:11:24.530 --> 1:11:28.520 urge them to not be reasonable with their first 50 1:11:28.520 --> 1:11:33.680 team members, could we not allow the excuses and the 1:11:33.680 --> 1:11:36.799 personalities to get in the way of what the mission 1:11:36.800 --> 1:11:40.130 of the organization is. You start to build this strength 1:11:40.130 --> 1:11:42.439 where you're like, wait a second, just because Bob has 1:11:42.439 --> 1:11:45.500 this great resume and he comes from this pedigree, doesn't 1:11:45.500 --> 1:11:48.050 mean that he gets to run a train in my 1:11:48.050 --> 1:11:50.599 business and make all of these decisions in a way 1:11:50.600 --> 1:11:53.180 that is not in alignment with who I am. If 1:11:53.180 --> 1:11:55.309 you can do that with your first 50 team members 1:11:55.310 --> 1:11:58.019 and have your leaders be the type of people that 1:11:58.020 --> 1:12:01.889 actually represent your brand and that you like working with, 1:12:01.890 --> 1:12:05.370 and that are an example of what you want. Future 1:12:05.370 --> 1:12:08.820 team members, your 200th team member, your 500 team member 1:12:08.820 --> 1:12:11.129 to be like, if that's not how you feel about 1:12:11.130 --> 1:12:14.130 your first 50 team members, then keep weeding out the 1:12:14.130 --> 1:12:17.670 people that you are being reasonable with. So you keep 1:12:17.670 --> 1:12:20.070 this philosophy of I'm going to be unreasonable because then 1:12:20.070 --> 1:12:22.770 when you have those people, those first 50 people, they 1:12:22.770 --> 1:12:26.370 will help you scale and grow the departments the right way. 1:12:26.370 --> 1:12:28.800 But if you start being reasonable with your fifth employee, 1:12:28.800 --> 1:12:31.710 and people become reasonable for all sorts of reasons, because 1:12:31.710 --> 1:12:34.229 they don't think they can find better people, they think 1:12:34.229 --> 1:12:37.170 that the problems that Bob has are better than the 1:12:37.170 --> 1:12:40.470 unknown problems that Joe is going to bring in the business. 1:12:40.470 --> 1:12:42.690 They don't think that there's enough talent. They hear these 1:12:42.689 --> 1:12:45.540 stories like what your friends were telling you about somebody 1:12:45.540 --> 1:12:48.580 in their second week, renegotiating their salary, like all of 1:12:48.580 --> 1:12:51.760 these random things in a business happen. But you have 1:12:51.760 --> 1:12:54.580 to stay true to this is what I'm trying to build. 1:12:54.580 --> 1:12:56.229 These are the people I want to spend my time around. 1:12:56.229 --> 1:12:58.120 If you do not fit this, I am confident that 1:12:58.120 --> 1:13:01.270 I will find somebody who will. So no thank you, 1:13:01.270 --> 1:13:03.340 thank you, but no thank you. I'm going to replace 1:13:03.340 --> 1:13:05.170 you with somebody who is in alignment with what I 1:13:05.170 --> 1:13:07.300 want this business to look like. And if you can 1:13:07.300 --> 1:13:10.450 stick to that early on as a small business owner, 1:13:10.450 --> 1:13:13.690 you'll be able to have the confidence to reset with 1:13:13.689 --> 1:13:17.020 a problematic CRO and CTO because it's just the same 1:13:17.020 --> 1:13:20.350 thing on a larger scale and with more team members, 1:13:20.350 --> 1:13:21.880 I love this. Um. 1:13:22.570 --> 1:13:25.030 So start the work. You can get it anywhere. You 1:13:25.030 --> 1:13:27.940 can get books, obviously. So Amazon will put links in 1:13:27.939 --> 1:13:31.689 the show notes. What would be one thing that you 1:13:32.020 --> 1:13:33.849 wish you put in the book that you may be 1:13:33.850 --> 1:13:34.600 left out? 1:13:34.990 --> 1:13:37.330 Mhm. Oh, that's such a good question. I'm sure there's. 1:13:37.330 --> 1:13:38.350 A lot but. 1:13:49.060 --> 1:13:53.139 It's such a good question. You know I teach all 1:13:53.140 --> 1:13:56.469 of the content that's in the book. And so funny enough, 1:13:56.470 --> 1:13:58.600 I just came off of two days of teaching this 1:13:58.600 --> 1:14:02.200 specific content, and the group of people in the room 1:14:02.200 --> 1:14:08.740 are business owners and leaders navigating metrics and quarterly team meetings. 1:14:08.740 --> 1:14:11.080 And they're like, in the thick of it. And if 1:14:11.080 --> 1:14:14.620 I could include anything which I still technically can because 1:14:14.620 --> 1:14:18.189 the resources can be added and changed, I would just 1:14:18.189 --> 1:14:23.929 give more tangible examples of what success looks like with 1:14:23.930 --> 1:14:27.769 metrics tracking, because it's not the same across every single business. 1:14:27.770 --> 1:14:30.590 And so I'm a big visual learner. I think a 1:14:30.590 --> 1:14:34.219 lot of times business owners get confused because something doesn't 1:14:34.220 --> 1:14:37.370 instantly apply to their business, and they can't contextualize how 1:14:37.370 --> 1:14:38.960 it could apply to their business. And so they just 1:14:38.960 --> 1:14:41.720 don't do the thing. Like they don't understand what a 1:14:41.720 --> 1:14:43.670 PNL is. And so they kind of always push this 1:14:43.670 --> 1:14:46.460 thing off because they, they don't understand this one word. 1:14:46.460 --> 1:14:48.680 And all of a sudden they're now operating a business 1:14:48.680 --> 1:14:51.650 without financials. And so as I was teaching this content 1:14:51.650 --> 1:14:54.290 this weekend, we had different groups of people in the room. 1:14:54.290 --> 1:14:55.700 And I was like, man, I would love to give 1:14:55.700 --> 1:14:59.840 the example of a quarterly team meeting for a business 1:14:59.840 --> 1:15:04.729 services organization versus an HVAC business, because there are nuances 1:15:04.729 --> 1:15:07.939 in building out a library of more tangible things that 1:15:07.939 --> 1:15:10.280 people can really see, like, aha, that's me, I'm going 1:15:10.280 --> 1:15:13.400 to pick this resource. I'm a super tactical person. The 1:15:13.400 --> 1:15:16.310 book is super tactical. I want to just give all 1:15:16.310 --> 1:15:18.680 of the solutions for people to be able to implement. 1:15:18.680 --> 1:15:20.540 And when I look back on it, I'm like, oh, 1:15:20.540 --> 1:15:22.490 there's still so many more examples that I can give. 1:15:22.490 --> 1:15:25.220 So I probably am going to actually add more resources 1:15:25.220 --> 1:15:26.000 to the book. 1:15:26.479 --> 1:15:29.450 Um, I think, I think that some of these things 1:15:29.450 --> 1:15:32.090 can be overwhelming for people that are just operating in business, 1:15:32.090 --> 1:15:36.000 especially 1 to 3 million. You probably you may or 1:15:36.000 --> 1:15:37.979 may not know what KPIs are. You may or may 1:15:37.979 --> 1:15:44.610 not know what a PNL is. OKRs are a various, 1:15:44.610 --> 1:15:48.510 you know, a version of KPIs that maybe are a 1:15:48.510 --> 1:15:51.599 little bit more confusing and complex quarterly meetings. I mean, 1:15:51.600 --> 1:15:53.100 you have meetings, but like, what's the point of a 1:15:53.100 --> 1:15:55.769 quarterly meeting? What's the point of an annual meeting if 1:15:55.770 --> 1:15:59.469 you were going to look at all the different metrics 1:15:59.470 --> 1:16:03.490 and things that people should look at as a business owner, 1:16:03.970 --> 1:16:06.939 maybe just very briefly, because obviously they're going to go 1:16:06.939 --> 1:16:09.700 to the book to get a lot more nuance. What 1:16:09.700 --> 1:16:12.190 are the main things that are important? What are the 1:16:12.189 --> 1:16:14.290 things that maybe can be pushed off even until the 1:16:14.290 --> 1:16:16.000 $8 million break point? Mhm. 1:16:16.180 --> 1:16:18.530 I would push off quarterly team meetings to the $8 1:16:18.530 --> 1:16:21.610 million break points. I would absolutely have a daily metrics 1:16:21.610 --> 1:16:25.980 tracker inside your business. At the start, you looking at 1:16:25.979 --> 1:16:29.220 15 things that are happening in your business every single 1:16:29.220 --> 1:16:35.880 day between your marketing, sales, cash collected and operational functions. 1:16:35.880 --> 1:16:39.360 Those initiatives you should be looking at the changes daily, 1:16:39.360 --> 1:16:43.979 what's working, what's not working, and really understand the pulse 1:16:43.979 --> 1:16:46.470 of your business. You don't have to look at them 1:16:46.470 --> 1:16:49.320 weekly if you're looking at them daily and when you're 1:16:49.320 --> 1:16:52.320 looking at them daily. I wrap this into a daily 1:16:52.320 --> 1:16:56.070 alt meeting because from my standpoint, if you're a 15 1:16:56.070 --> 1:16:59.510 team HVAC business and you're doing 1 million or 1 1:16:59.510 --> 1:17:02.010 million and a half dollars in revenue, you're going to 1:17:02.010 --> 1:17:05.610 know what's working so fast. If you're looking at the 1:17:05.610 --> 1:17:08.040 daily change, it's not it doesn't take a rocket science 1:17:08.040 --> 1:17:10.320 to figure out, oh, we got all of these leads yesterday. 1:17:10.320 --> 1:17:12.460 What did we do right yesterday? Oh, we didn't get 1:17:12.460 --> 1:17:15.639 very many leads yesterday. What happened was something broken was 1:17:15.640 --> 1:17:18.969 something not connected. You're so much more in tune with 1:17:18.970 --> 1:17:21.670 looking at and understanding what's happening in your business when 1:17:21.670 --> 1:17:24.280 you're actually doing this daily. And it's a practice that 1:17:24.280 --> 1:17:27.370 if you wait until your financials come back to you 1:17:27.370 --> 1:17:30.550 a month later, you're not actually able to impact revenue, 1:17:30.580 --> 1:17:34.240 you're not able to make a change. And I strongly 1:17:34.240 --> 1:17:39.250 encourage business owners to schedule their day around what's happening 1:17:39.250 --> 1:17:41.800 inside the business. How am I looking at these daily metrics? 1:17:41.800 --> 1:17:44.740 How do I have time for myself and the key 1:17:44.740 --> 1:17:47.830 people that I'm dependent upon to make a change that 1:17:47.830 --> 1:17:51.849 day based off of what's not working any longer? If 1:17:51.850 --> 1:17:54.879 something didn't work yesterday, how am I making time for 1:17:54.880 --> 1:17:59.050 my day today to fix or to look at what's 1:17:59.060 --> 1:18:01.700 not working any longer. Because how many days am I 1:18:01.700 --> 1:18:03.860 going to go? How many weeks? How many months am 1:18:03.860 --> 1:18:07.429 I going to go before I realize that the leads 1:18:07.430 --> 1:18:10.849 aren't connected, or that my sales person is reading the 1:18:10.850 --> 1:18:13.250 wrong script and their conversions are going around or are 1:18:13.250 --> 1:18:16.099 going down? The smaller you are, the more easy it 1:18:16.100 --> 1:18:17.900 is to be able to see those things that are 1:18:17.900 --> 1:18:20.330 working and aren't working. Do less of the things that 1:18:20.330 --> 1:18:22.730 aren't working, do more of the things that are working 1:18:22.729 --> 1:18:25.019 and you're going to be able to make time for 1:18:25.020 --> 1:18:27.929 making those tweaks quickly. If you're looking at those numbers 1:18:27.930 --> 1:18:31.290 every single day, it's not metrics for metrics sake, it's 1:18:31.290 --> 1:18:34.230 metrics so that I can actually reorganize my day, not 1:18:34.229 --> 1:18:36.870 to fight fires, not to deal with the BS that 1:18:36.870 --> 1:18:39.389 my team has created on some issue. It's to actually 1:18:39.390 --> 1:18:41.040 fix something that's not working. 1:18:41.040 --> 1:18:45.210 Would you say daily metrics or daily meetings are more important? 1:18:45.810 --> 1:18:49.519 Both daily metrics and then a daily meeting. That's what 1:18:49.520 --> 1:18:51.050 it looks like for us. Even today, I have a 1:18:51.050 --> 1:18:53.750 daily metrics report that gets sent into my email as 1:18:53.750 --> 1:18:56.360 soon as the day starts from yesterday that is aligned 1:18:56.360 --> 1:18:58.880 with our daily all team meeting. And then immediately afterwards, 1:18:58.880 --> 1:19:01.070 there's a leadership meeting for us to block and tackle. 1:19:01.070 --> 1:19:03.349 What happened? Why is this thing off? How are we 1:19:03.350 --> 1:19:05.570 doing more of that? And then there's obviously time to 1:19:05.570 --> 1:19:07.370 look into the future and to say, okay, how are 1:19:07.370 --> 1:19:09.860 we strategically planning and how are we fixing things and 1:19:09.860 --> 1:19:11.900 what are where are we going and how are we 1:19:11.900 --> 1:19:14.510 aligning the initiatives with that stuff? That stuff needs to happen. 1:19:14.510 --> 1:19:17.440 But most business owners, in order to get from 1 1:19:17.439 --> 1:19:19.559 million or 3 million and actually hit an 8 million 1:19:19.560 --> 1:19:22.520 or 10 million or $15 million target, they have to 1:19:22.520 --> 1:19:24.799 pay attention to what's actually happening in their business today, 1:19:24.800 --> 1:19:30.140 not future casting and shiny penning all of the different 1:19:30.140 --> 1:19:31.490 initiatives that could be happening right. 1:19:31.490 --> 1:19:34.309 Now, and also like leading indicators as opposed to lagging 1:19:34.310 --> 1:19:36.990 indicators for success too. I think that we get caught 1:19:36.990 --> 1:19:39.570 up in vanity metrics and lagging indicators way too much. 1:19:39.840 --> 1:19:40.740 Couldn't agree more. 1:19:40.770 --> 1:19:43.950 Um, okay. Uh, if you were going to anything that 1:19:43.950 --> 1:19:45.900 we didn't cover, we went to a lot. So anything 1:19:45.900 --> 1:19:47.759 that we didn't cover that you wanted to go into 1:19:47.760 --> 1:19:49.980 from the book, anything that you can talk about, stuff 1:19:49.979 --> 1:19:52.200 you're working on now, that's not the book because you 1:19:52.200 --> 1:19:57.660 have like these, you present all the time. So cossitt workshops, obviously. Um, 1:19:57.660 --> 1:19:59.820 we could talk about just where people can connect with 1:19:59.820 --> 1:20:01.650 you as well and get all the socials and the handles. 1:20:01.650 --> 1:20:03.060 But anything that we didn't go into. 1:20:03.930 --> 1:20:06.630 You know, it's funny, this is the first podcast that 1:20:06.630 --> 1:20:11.850 I've done in four years where this thing happened, and 1:20:11.850 --> 1:20:13.290 I want to talk about this on the podcast. This 1:20:13.290 --> 1:20:17.430 thing happened five minutes into the podcast and this thing 1:20:17.580 --> 1:20:20.220 that used to plague me and not allow me to 1:20:20.220 --> 1:20:23.670 publicly speak. I was terrified of publicly speaking five years ago, 1:20:23.760 --> 1:20:26.189 six years ago, eight years ago. I had no confidence 1:20:26.189 --> 1:20:28.680 because every time I would get into a room after 1:20:28.680 --> 1:20:33.630 I had this horrible, nightmarish public speaking event, this like 1:20:33.630 --> 1:20:36.180 thing would happen in my brain where I would hear 1:20:36.180 --> 1:20:38.820 15 different voices all at the same time. And instead 1:20:38.820 --> 1:20:41.700 of being able to communicate what I wanted to communicate, 1:20:41.850 --> 1:20:44.040 15 different people were talking to me. And like, I 1:20:44.040 --> 1:20:47.670 almost couldn't hear my own thoughts. And so I worked 1:20:47.670 --> 1:20:51.300 with a speaking coach. I when you talk about reps, 1:20:51.300 --> 1:20:53.700 like I put in reps for every opportunity I could 1:20:53.700 --> 1:20:56.639 get to make a toast, to host a group meeting 1:20:56.640 --> 1:20:58.860 to record myself. I would do that so I could 1:20:58.860 --> 1:21:01.679 get over this thing that was happening to me. And 1:21:01.680 --> 1:21:04.710 the craziest thing happened ten or maybe even five minutes 1:21:04.710 --> 1:21:07.830 in where that took place. And I thought that I 1:21:07.830 --> 1:21:10.500 was over that. And what I want to share with 1:21:10.500 --> 1:21:14.349 the audience through this podcast experience is even when you 1:21:14.350 --> 1:21:17.589 think you've gotten good at something, you might not be 1:21:17.590 --> 1:21:20.020 so good at that thing, and you're never over those 1:21:20.020 --> 1:21:23.380 pieces that you're worried about or might have had insecurity 1:21:23.380 --> 1:21:26.680 about years ago. And so this game of creating a 1:21:26.680 --> 1:21:29.139 business and being a public speaker and figuring out how 1:21:29.140 --> 1:21:31.030 to get confidence and figuring out how to host a 1:21:31.030 --> 1:21:33.880 podcast or launch a social media platform, whatever it is, 1:21:33.880 --> 1:21:38.650 it is a continuous, evolving learning opportunity. And when you 1:21:38.650 --> 1:21:41.290 make mistakes or when you mess something up, it's so 1:21:41.290 --> 1:21:43.510 easy to just like internalize. And I think that this 1:21:43.510 --> 1:21:46.150 is one of my superpowers. Even with the book, there 1:21:46.150 --> 1:21:48.910 are tons of things that after you hit publish, you're like, 1:21:48.910 --> 1:21:51.400 I want to fix it and I want to do more. 1:21:51.400 --> 1:21:53.890 But that's the exact thing that I think plagues people 1:21:53.890 --> 1:21:56.080 and stops them is they get so caught up in, 1:21:56.080 --> 1:21:57.820 I want to do more. I have to perfect it, 1:21:57.820 --> 1:21:59.889 or they're so hard on themselves that they don't just 1:21:59.900 --> 1:22:02.720 keep moving forward and they don't figure out how to 1:22:02.720 --> 1:22:06.650 overcome from a mindset standpoint, those those moments where they're 1:22:06.650 --> 1:22:10.280 embarrassed or frustrated or disappointed in themselves. And so we 1:22:10.280 --> 1:22:12.379 didn't talk too much about mindset things. But I know 1:22:12.380 --> 1:22:14.270 I'm going to rewatch this podcast. I'm going to listen 1:22:14.270 --> 1:22:16.250 to the podcast and be like, man, what happened there? 1:22:16.250 --> 1:22:17.930 And how could I have done that differently? But at 1:22:17.930 --> 1:22:20.870 the same time, five years ago, I would have just 1:22:20.870 --> 1:22:23.420 beaten myself up for this like thing that I perceive 1:22:23.420 --> 1:22:25.190 I can't control. Of course I can control it, I 1:22:25.189 --> 1:22:26.839 know I can, but in the moment it feels like 1:22:26.840 --> 1:22:30.530 it's uncontrollable and that just urging the person that's listening 1:22:30.560 --> 1:22:32.660 to this right now, that if you're struggling through something 1:22:32.660 --> 1:22:35.090 where you're feeling like you have to take two steps 1:22:35.090 --> 1:22:37.460 back and you just continue to take two steps, two 1:22:37.460 --> 1:22:40.519 steps back, it's okay that that happens to you. It's 1:22:40.520 --> 1:22:43.040 okay that there are moments where you're not perfect. You 1:22:43.040 --> 1:22:45.050 just have to keep going on with the thing, and 1:22:45.050 --> 1:22:47.870 you have to just keep remembering that the target is. 1:22:47.900 --> 1:22:50.510 In this case, it's the finished podcast, right? But in 1:22:50.510 --> 1:22:53.240 a bigger things in life, it's making sure that the 1:22:53.240 --> 1:22:56.450 perfection that you want isn't the thing that actually stops 1:22:56.450 --> 1:22:58.340 you from continuing to move forward. 1:22:58.640 --> 1:23:00.950 I would say that also. I mean, it's never as 1:23:00.950 --> 1:23:02.900 bad as you think it is. That's true. I mean, 1:23:02.900 --> 1:23:06.770 it's really it's never bad as like we our, our 1:23:06.770 --> 1:23:11.180 perception conflates this issue in our mind and it causes 1:23:11.180 --> 1:23:13.520 panic and stress and And it's never that bad and 1:23:13.520 --> 1:23:15.170 it's honestly never even noticeable. 1:23:15.200 --> 1:23:18.380 Sometimes it is that bad. Okay, maybe sometimes it can 1:23:18.380 --> 1:23:20.599 be pretty freaking bad. Like, have you ever had one 1:23:20.600 --> 1:23:22.940 of those moments where it's pretty bad? Something you do 1:23:22.939 --> 1:23:24.140 just sounds horrendous. 1:23:24.140 --> 1:23:24.560 Yes. 1:23:24.680 --> 1:23:25.550 But something. 1:23:25.550 --> 1:23:27.200 But when I listen back to it, it's never as 1:23:27.200 --> 1:23:30.830 bad as I think it is interesting. And I also 1:23:30.830 --> 1:23:35.600 I also understand now because I've usually it's in some 1:23:35.600 --> 1:23:38.430 sort of like performance based, like speaking on a podcast 1:23:38.430 --> 1:23:42.300 or speaking on stage. What it actually is, it's, it's 1:23:42.300 --> 1:23:45.870 it's a protection mechanism. And your cortisol increases and you 1:23:45.870 --> 1:23:49.110 get a small little panic, micro panic attack, and then 1:23:49.110 --> 1:23:51.570 your body just has to like level out and normalize. 1:23:51.570 --> 1:23:53.370 But the thing is, when we get this panic attack, 1:23:53.370 --> 1:23:55.470 if we don't know that it's actually a natural response 1:23:55.470 --> 1:23:58.590 to being put on stage or being put on the spot, 1:23:58.860 --> 1:24:00.960 we we think there's something wrong with us. And then 1:24:00.960 --> 1:24:05.040 we'll be thinking about that thing as opposed to like, 1:24:05.040 --> 1:24:07.620 what we're actually trying to do. And it will actually 1:24:07.920 --> 1:24:12.089 we will create this, this mindset where we keep thinking 1:24:12.090 --> 1:24:14.610 it's happening to us even though it's not. Yep. And 1:24:14.610 --> 1:24:16.740 we'll keep stumbling. We'll keep and and you can usually 1:24:16.740 --> 1:24:19.140 for me at least, I can tell when I'm stressed 1:24:19.140 --> 1:24:21.389 out about something because my mouth gets dry. That's like 1:24:21.390 --> 1:24:25.200 the one sign now by doing it 500 times or 1:24:25.200 --> 1:24:28.830 by speaking on stage, not 500 times, but enough, um, 1:24:28.830 --> 1:24:33.719 I can perform through it. But that's again, just because 1:24:33.720 --> 1:24:36.450 of doing the reps. It's 100% doing the reps. 1:24:36.450 --> 1:24:37.230 Putting in the work. 1:24:37.229 --> 1:24:38.820 By the way, we could do a whole mindset podcast, 1:24:38.820 --> 1:24:40.080 but I wanted to get the tactics though. 1:24:40.470 --> 1:24:41.760 I love the tactics. 1:24:41.790 --> 1:24:45.719 Tactics are important. Tactics are very important. Um, if people 1:24:45.720 --> 1:24:47.520 want to connect with you, where should they go? 1:24:47.520 --> 1:24:51.090 Natalie Dawson I am super, super involved on Instagram. I 1:24:51.090 --> 1:24:53.670 answer all my own DMs. I love Instagram, it's my 1:24:53.670 --> 1:24:56.880 platform of choice, so find me there. Perfect. 1:24:56.880 --> 1:24:59.010 Last question. If you were going to tell your 20 1:24:59.010 --> 1:25:00.780 year old self one thing, what would it be? 1:25:00.810 --> 1:25:03.120 I would tell my 20 year old self to go 1:25:03.120 --> 1:25:06.630 all in. I was so worried about what people thought 1:25:06.630 --> 1:25:09.600 of me, and got so wrapped up in my own 1:25:09.600 --> 1:25:13.600 limitations that I just like, tried a bunch of things 1:25:13.600 --> 1:25:15.790 that I never wanted to commit to something, even things 1:25:15.790 --> 1:25:19.210 that I liked. I used to like scrapbooking. Scrapbooking was 1:25:19.210 --> 1:25:21.160 like my thing, but I had some friends that made 1:25:21.160 --> 1:25:23.920 fun of me for scrapbooking. And so I stopped doing 1:25:23.920 --> 1:25:27.070 the scrapbooking, which sounds ridiculous. But today you see people 1:25:27.070 --> 1:25:30.410 who have built $1 million or $10 million or $100 1:25:30.410 --> 1:25:34.120 million scrapbooking business because they were just really passionate and 1:25:34.120 --> 1:25:37.070 into that thing. And so for so long, I really 1:25:37.070 --> 1:25:39.230 felt like I held myself back, especially at the age 1:25:39.229 --> 1:25:41.929 of 20, from going all in on the things that 1:25:41.930 --> 1:25:45.800 interested me, because I was fearful and insecure and really 1:25:45.800 --> 1:25:48.530 worried about what other people think. And today, the interests 1:25:48.530 --> 1:25:51.410 and passions that I have, I'm like, I'm crazy and 1:25:51.410 --> 1:25:54.200 a freak and a fanatic about those things. And I 1:25:54.200 --> 1:25:57.620 slowed my growth by 8 to 10 years by not 1:25:57.620 --> 1:26:00.140 having that mentality a lot sooner. I love. 1:26:00.140 --> 1:26:01.450 It. All right. I want to say thank you for 1:26:01.450 --> 1:26:03.580 coming on, and I just want to say thank you 1:26:03.580 --> 1:26:08.740 for for making the entrepreneur journey less, uh, less stressful. 1:26:08.740 --> 1:26:11.049 I think that's very important. I think that's very, very important. 1:26:11.050 --> 1:26:13.660 I'm a big fan of entrepreneurship, obviously, and I think 1:26:13.660 --> 1:26:16.000 what you're doing is amazing for small business owners, for 1:26:16.000 --> 1:26:18.370 people that are just trying to figure out, okay, what 1:26:18.370 --> 1:26:21.099 did I get myself into? Yep. And thank you for 1:26:21.100 --> 1:26:21.520 doing that. 1:26:21.520 --> 1:26:22.690 Thank you. Appreciate you.